


What Comes After

by Deejaymil



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, NCIS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Crossover, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, Het and Slash, Loss, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, Moving On, Parent-Child Relationship, Sexual Content, Team Bonding, Team as Family, Whump, daemon AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-05-11 01:36:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 88,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5608867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deejaymil/pseuds/Deejaymil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's almost like the start of a bad joke. In the years to come, Leroy Gibbs would become very familiar with bad jokes. An ex-marine and a Baltimore cop walk into a room. The Baltimore cop is cocky, arrogant. The kind of man that sets Gibbs’ teeth on edge. </p><p>What happens next is the punchline.</p><p>What happens next is the rest of their lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Meetings

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my beta, Otrame, for all her help with this piece - especially the fiddly bits and pieces I struggled with!
> 
> For those who are unfamiliar with the His Dark Materials universe, this is basically all you need to know (taken from the wiki)
> 
> **"A dæmon /ˈdiːmən/ is a type of fictional being in the Philip Pullman fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials. Dæmons are the external physical manifestation of a person's 'inner-self' that takes the form of an animal. Dæmons have human intelligence, are capable of human speech—regardless of the form they take—and usually behave as though they are independent of their humans. Pre-pubescent children's dæmons can change form voluntarily, almost instantaneously, to become any creature, real or imaginary. During their adolescence a person's dæmon undergoes "settling", an event in which that person's dæmon permanently and involuntarily assumes the form of the animal which the person most resembles in character. Dæmons and their humans are almost always of different genders."**
> 
>  
> 
> _“I've been lonely for so long. And I've been hurt so deeply. If only I could have met you again a long time ago, then I wouldn't have had to take all these detours to get here.”_
> 
> **― Haruki Murakami, _1Q84_**

It was almost like the start of a bad joke. In the years to come, Leroy Gibbs would become familiar with bad jokes: an ex-marine and a Baltimore cop walk into a room. The Baltimore cop is cocky, arrogant. The kind of man that sets Gibbs’ teeth on edge.

What happens next is the punchline.

What happens next is the rest of their lives.

 

* * *

 

Anthony DiNozzo’s mother was a firm believer in fate. _Everything happens for a reason,_ she would tell him. She loved books and she loved movies. Most of all, she loved her son; loved him with the fierce passion of a woman who had little else left to love. She would read to him endless passages from musty old poetry books while he wriggled and squirmed on her lap, his dæmon restlessly flickering from one colourful, feathered form to the next, both eager to be away.

They lived in a big house that echoed with emptiness. Anthony sometimes wondered why only the front rooms were filled with furniture, the rooms he wasn’t allowed to play in. When he asked his mom, she said that they were a stage and murmured about appearances. Anthony liked that most of the rooms were empty. It meant that when she sang while home alone, her voice was easily heard no matter where he was. The clicking of his dæmon’s claws on the polished floorboards when she took canine form would remain a soothing noise to him long after he ceased to remember why he liked the sound.

If he was good, his mother would watch movies with him with her nightingale dæmon a silent watcher over them all. She’d run her fingers through his hair and quote the lines off by heart. Her dæmon would whistle along sometimes, tuneless and dull. In all the time Anthony knew him, he never sang. If he was bad, she’d frown at him and click her tongue, and his dæmon would become a whimpering puppy with her tail tucked between her legs, cringing for supplication. She never stayed mad for long.

She didn’t stay for long.

After his mother died, Anthony would listen to his father gripe about how she had never been happy; how their lives together had been lessened by her misery in the home that he’d built for her. For a while, he believed him, because he was his father and his father couldn’t possibly be wrong.

He’d thought that about his mother, but then his mother had left him.

When he grew older it occurred to him that a cage is a cage, no matter how gilded the bars and perhaps that his mother had been right all along. The smell of old books made him feel ill and brought back memories of a bony knee and the rustle of wings that rarely opened in flight.

He swore he’d never be like that.

They couldn’t cage him if he didn’t stay still long enough for them to close the gate.

 

* * *

 

Leroy Gibbs didn’t even allow for the dust of Stillwater to be shaken off his boots before he firmly moved on to the next part of his life. As far as he was concerned, every moment had led to this; this house with this wife and his daughter both brilliant lights that made everything else shine the brighter for reflecting them.

Shannon’s Rule #1: always trust your dæmon.

And his dæmon was happier than she’d ever been before in the moments when they were a family. Shannon’s delicate-limbed roe deer dæmon watching over them with liquid eyes as Kali chased their daughter’s dæmon around in endless circles. Kali’s vivid red coat would be the only clear thing he would remember of these times when they were gone. He would dream of a fox chasing something, but he never knew what she was chasing; in the end, the fox was always alone.

He was the best at his work, of course he was. He trusted his gut and his dæmon. They were never out of sync. The sniper with his fox dæmon at his side; two sets of ears and eyes working in perfect harmony. His success only meant he wasn’t home when he was needed.

Leroy Gibbs didn’t believe in fate. There was nothing predestined about his family dying while he was too far away to stop it. There was nothing predestined about the two gravestones, one with a deer dæmon gilded into it and the other the fox and deer standing together. Her parents’ dæmons, because her own had never settled. Would never settle.

Gone to Dust before given a chance to live.

There was nothing predestined about him hunting down the man responsible. It was his choice, his actions, that directly led to the bullet through Pedro Hernandez’s windshield and skull as Kali shrieked her pain and fury for no one to hear.

There was no fate. Just action and reaction. Everything that happened could be traced back to a road he’d taken previously. He carried the weight of it all.

When Pedro Hernandez died, Kali’s red coat shifted and settled again.

He made a name for himself at NIS. The ex-marine sniper with the coal-black fox dæmon with eyes as icy blue as her human’s. A loner. A hunter. The best at his job.

And the knowledge of it burned him.

 

* * *

 

Anthony believed in fate, because his mother had and because he’d seen too much not to.

Ten was a big year for him. Ten was walking in and finding his mom on the floor with gold glittering on her clothes and the nightingale nothing but a fading memory. Ten was his father bringing another woman to her funeral, and Anthony running away from the confusion of it all.

Ten was climbing his favourite tree in the middle of winter as Fitz swooped around his head as a furious cawing raven. It was his foot slipping on the slick branch and sending him plummeting to the ground as ineffectual claws grasped helplessly at his shirt. Ten was breaking his arm and going unnoticed under that tree as his father complained to the mourners about him inheriting his ‘mother’s flighty disposition’.

It was Fitz finally dropping the brightly coloured exuberant forms she’d spent the last ten years showing off in and settling as a long-limbed canine, howling until someone heard and came to lift the pale, frozen child out of the snow. As far as Anthony was concerned, it was fate that meant there was someone to hear his dæmon’s howls, and fate that led to him being alone in a hospital room with lungs heavy with sickness; the only sign of his father a gift basket with best wishes written on it in an unfamiliar hand.

“I miss Mom,” he admitted just once to his dæmon when he was home again in the empty house.

“Don’t,” she advised him warily, lowering her head and folding back large, velvet ears. “Everyone leaves in the end. Don’t get attached.”

“Except you.” It wasn’t a question.

She jumped up on the bed, curled around him as his breath wheezed in his chest. “Except me.”

 

* * *

 

Caitlin Todd grew up in a house with three boys and an older sister who gave as good as she got. Her life plans had never included two and a half kids and a mortgage. Her sister was always too old, too cool, to hang out with the ‘kids’, so Kate spent a lot of her childhood tagging after her brothers. Later, she would wonder if this explained her penchant for finding trouble no matter where she went.

“I don’t wanna play with no girl,” snapped one of her brother’s nameless friends when she was eight and her brothers were infinitely older and wiser than her. His dæmon sneered at hers with white fangs, a large tabby cat, fierce and bold. She could be bold too. Baoth shifted to a hawk and sneered back, wings mantled as a warning against sharp talons that dug into her shirt and left holes for her mother to sigh over.

“She’s not a girl,” Roy said with a laugh, glancing at her. “She’s just our sister.”

Kate didn’t want to be ‘just’ anything. She didn’t belong to anyone.

She spent her life proving that.

 

* * *

 

Somehow, he lived past Shannon and Kelly’s deaths, even though he’d never intended to. Living, after all, was easy when the people around him refused to let him contemplate otherwise.

Ducky arrived in his life and sectioned himself off a corner of Gibbs’ brain, refusing to move out again. His easy smile was mirrored by his porcupine dæmon’s face, both cheekily adamant that they had every right to his friendship and yet endlessly grateful that he’d given it to them. Even Kali cautiously gave way to their friendliness, although ever aware of the porcupine’s sharp quills and slow, rare temper.

Fornell was subtler. They clashed, often, but they always ended up back in Gibbs’ basement, ruffled and bruised and ready to try again. Five divorces between the two of them, they remained constant. And, if Fornell was the only one to know of his loss, of the two graves that haunted him, they never spoke of it. Every year on the anniversary of Gibbs’ greatest failure, they would both get quietly drunk and say nothing of importance.

Then there was Paris and Jenny Shepherd, and their dæmons matched in more ways than one. It was fervent, breath-taking, and something nameless in Gibbs’ gut twisted when he saw the two foxes lying together; copper coat vivid against black.

It ended, like almost everything did eventually.

“You don’t have to go,” he’d said, as close to asking her to stay as he’d ever been.

She tilted her head, so much like her fox, and smiled with a sadness that reached her eyes. “You have serious trust issues, Jethro. We’d destroy each other.”

He looked away first. “You trust too easily.”

“Says the man who’s been married three times.”

_Four_ , he thought, but he didn’t say it. She wasn’t wrong, after all.

 

* * *

 

Kate lost her virginity at the age of seventeen to a boy she’d known since pre-school. It wasn’t exactly what she’d expected the experience to be like, but it was probably what she got for sleeping with a guy purely because he was cute and available while she was bored and just a little bit drunk on wine coolers and life. And, probably a little bit because her brothers would have been pissed if they knew.

Even as she kissed him she couldn’t help but remember that this was a guy who used to deliberately spray milk out his nose at lunchtime. She wondered what he remembered of her from back then. She asked him, once they were dressed again and awkwardly fumbling for conversation.

He shrugged, his dæmon a glossy skunk in his lap. “I don’t remember you much. You didn’t really stand out.”

True or not, it bothered her. “We used to play football together sometimes,” she argued.

He smiled. “You always used to run away with the ball.”

When he left, she watched Baoth fly around her room as a small hawk of some kind and considered whether or not she regretted it. It didn’t really feel like anything had changed. There was no mysterious ‘awakening’ of her womanhood like she’d almost come to expect after reading the books her mother and sister had both foisted upon her.

“He’s an idiot,” Baoth said finally, landing on her mirror and thoughtfully preening his speckled feathers. “We weren’t running away. We always knew exactly where we were going.”

It was a weird thrill when she realized. Something had changed, and it was infinitely more exciting than the sex. “You’ve settled. What are you?”

Wings shrugged carelessly. “No idea. Something fast.”

“Something brilliant,” she said proudly, examining his rufous back and the dark blue-grey sheen to his wings and head. No one would forget her with a dæmon as pretty as him.

And she intended to be remembered.

 

* * *

 

Tony acted the clown throughout school, and Fitz helped him play the part. Paws too big for her body and legs too lanky, she gambolled around as though she was always in the process of falling over, tongue lolling out of her mouth in a permanent, doggy smile. She put people at ease. Dæmons were quick to trust her, and, by extension, him.

He learned how to smile from his father, and how to wear that smile as a mask from the loneliness of boarding school. He slept with girls and he liked it well enough, Fitz snuggling up to their dæmons and humming happily along. Completely at ease until the act was over, and then she’d pull away and turn into a solid wall of prickling fur and disinterest, ignoring everyone including him until they were alone again.

He slept with a guy once and it wasn’t at all the same. It was rougher and needier somehow and left him aching in more ways than one. Fitz acted strange for days after, alternating between over-the-top playfulness and a bristling anger that clawed at his own temper.

He didn’t do it again.

He drank. Made friends. Lost them again. He moved constantly after school, rarely settling down. Even at college he made sure to find multiple groups to hang out with, never the same one in succession, always on the outskirts of fitting in. It was safer that way. He’d be remembered as the charmer, the fun party guy, but never for anything deeper.

There was a house fire and a choice and maybe it was fate that led Tony past it just in time to hear a child scream. Maybe it was fate that saved the boy and not his sister.

Fitz’s fur stunk of smoke and fear that night as he held her close and tried not to think of the boy screaming as though his heart was breaking. Maybe it had been.

“That was good, what we did today,” Fitz reassured him. “Maybe the best thing we’ve ever done. We could do that again.”

“The girl died.” The girl. He didn’t even know her name. How could they do that again without it destroying them?

“We could help people. We like helping people.”

How would someone like him help people? The answer seemed simple and almost clichéd. Tony snorted, remembering black and white films and play-acting them out together. “Bit obvious isn’t it, a guy with an Alsatian dæmon becoming a cop?”

She thought about it for a moment. “But we’d be _good_ at it,” she said finally.

He didn’t say it out loud, but he agreed with her.

And they were right.

 

* * *

 

“Don’t marry her, Tobias. You think we got divorced for the hell of it?”

Fornell rolled his eyes at him, leaning back against the bare wooden table in Gibbs’ basement. He ran a hand thoughtfully over the bruising on his chin. Gibbs didn’t apologise for it.

“When are you gonna learn to let things go, Jethro?” Fornell said. His bat dæmon clung to his jacket, rolling her eyes at him as well. “Give her a chance. Maybe we have what you the two of you didn’t.”

Gibbs choked back another mouthful of cheap whiskey, feeling the burn of it down his throat. “Well, you haven’t got any brains, that’s for sure. Diane is going to chew you up and spit you out.”

“You don’t look very chewed up.”

A muffled squeak of amusement issued from the jacket front. “That’s negotiable,” the bat muttered.

 

* * *

 

He treated work like he did everything else; never staying still long enough to become tied down. If he hit two years at a place, he’d be gone within the week. When handing in his resignation at his fourth PD, his boss had looked at it and sighed, taking the paper with reluctance. “Your dæmon doesn’t suit you,” he had said.

Tony looked down at Fitz, lying at his feet with her mouth half open in a yawn. “I’m not German enough to pull off the dog-cop routine, am I?” he’d joked, keeping his face open and relaxed despite the kick of trepidation the man’s words brought him.

“Alsatians are dependable. You’re anything but.”

He’d laughed it off. But he kept the words close, committed them to memory in the little part of his mind he kept of everything wrong about him. _Why can’t you take anything seriously?_ _He’s just like his mother… highly strung._

_You’re anything but._

He deserved it, really.

 

* * *

 

Tony DiNozzo was the worst kind of cop. Self-centred and arrogant, with a hint of smugness that set Gibbs’ teeth on edge. The sooner this case was over and he’d seen the last of the man with his ridiculous hair and expensive shoes that together probably cost more than Gibbs’ car, the better.

At least, that was his first impression.

He’d never been gladder to be wrong.

He could count the number of times Kali had talked in the last month on one hand, with fingers left over. He liked it that way. They didn’t need words. When she did talk, he always listened.

“He’s a good cop,” she remarked, watching Tony act the fool for his co-workers, none of them looking past the silly smile he kept pasted on his mug the whole time. “Probably the best they have.”

“He’s an idiot.”

“He’s wasted here. They’ll burn him out. You can see past the show, they can’t.”

“What do you want me to do about it? He’s not my problem.”

She didn’t answer, just closed her eyes and ignored him, but he got the message well enough. They didn’t need words.

 

* * *

 

Their first meeting wasn’t exactly prophetic.

A clash of dæmons, Fitz pinning the smaller fox to the ground as Tony tackled her human. The fox looked almost comically small under the dog’s wide paws. Later, he would wonder how he’d gotten the jump on a trained special agent so easily.

It never really occurred to him that Gibbs had let him do it.

Then the case was over and Tony crept around the Baltimore PD, once again at a crossroads; this time the bitter taste of betrayal was there to help him on his way. The man, Gibbs, sidled up to him and watched him through narrowed blue eyes, eerily mimicked by his dæmon. Tony had the unsettling feeling that he was being taken apart by those gazes, judging him and deciding just what exactly he had to offer them.

For some reason, he didn’t mind.

“Maybe being a cop isn’t for me,” he found himself admitting to the man, despite the fact they barely knew each other. Yet another sign it was time to move on.

Gibbs smacked his hand over the back of Tony’s head. Gently, but still. Tony stared at him.

“I don't have a lot of rules,” the man said slowly, without breaking eye contact. “But rule #5 is you don't waste good. You're good.”

“Told you so,” Fitz said smugly.

 

* * *

 

It took six months. Six months, and Gibbs moved into position and didn’t think to check that Tony was on his six.

He just knew.

As it turned out, trusting somebody was as easy as just knowing they’d be there if you needed them.

 

* * *

 

“This is a big assignment, Todd. There’s a lot riding on this.”

_You fuck this up, you’re out on your ass,_ was the unspoken message behind his tone. Kate nodded briskly and kept her face blank, Baoth on her shoulder. The American kestrel had proven to be just as eye catching as she’d guessed he would be when he first settled. Now she just had to live up to his promise.

“Understood. I won’t let you down, sir.”

Security detail on Airforce One. Letting him down would be the least of her worries if this went wrong.

“You know,” Agent Baer told her smugly as she walked out of the room, “they only picked you for this because Keplin is out sick.”

“They picked me because I’m good,” she snapped.

“Prove it,” he said, walking away without a second glance. She pulled a face at his back, succumbing to a childishness she rarely let show these days. She’d worked hard to get to where she was, but sometimes she hated this job. It was a boy’s club, and she’d had to fight tooth and nail to claw her way up the ranks.

Maybe what happened next was fate. It certainly wasn’t by design.

One thing was for sure… meeting Tony DiNozzo was never in her plan.


	2. Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gibbs finds Fornell squaring off against a woman with the kind of determined, self-assured bearing that’s gotten Gibbs divorced three times. Her kestrel dæmon is on her shoulder, his feathers sleek and unruffled, a far cry from the hissing fruit bat clinging to Fornell’s jacket with his wings hunched and teeth bared.

“It’s  _not_  Air Force One, Agent Fornell.” The woman smiles smugly, her eyes narrowing. “When the President departed on the backup plane,  _it_  became Air Force One. This is now Alpha Foxtrot 2900.”

Fornell’s mouth twists as though he’s fighting the urge to bristle like his bat. Gibbs settles back in the doorway to watch, smirking, sensing Tony trying to peer past him. “Don’t get into this pissing contest, Agent Todd,” Fornell growls, and Gibbs can hear a frustrated catch to his voice that he’d thought only he was capable of inspiring in his friend. “As you pointed out, the President’s gone—it’s no longer a Secret Service problem.”

The woman tilts her head to look at Gibbs, and there’s a flash of disquiet across her face. Her hand twitches upwards minutely, as though she’d barely stopped herself from pushing back a lock of hair or settling her palm against her dæmon. “Look. This could be a natural death, or it could be a botched attempt to murder the President. Until I know which, it’s my problem.” Before he can react to her glance, her regard has snapped back to Fornell as though it had never shifted at all. But the kestrel watches him with cold eyes, sizing him up.

“Are you two done contaminating the crime scene?” Gibbs asks, seeing Fornell jolt at the sound of his voice. He’ll never admit to the spark of gratification he gets from sneaking up on people who should know better than to let their guard down. DiNozzo, especially.

Fornell closes his eyes a moment and seems to reconsider his stance with Gibbs now on the scene. “I’m not going anywhere, before you try anything, Jethro.”

“I flew in on this plane,” the woman snaps. “I’m not getting off.”

Tony presses past, Fitz whining in frustration at the crowd by the narrow door keeping her out. Kali’s tail brushes Gibbs’ leg as she turns back to glare at the dog, who quietens instantly.

“Agent Todd, Secret Service,” Fornell says reluctantly, gesturing to the woman. “Agent Todd, this is Agent Royal-Pain-in-my-Rear-and-not-Getting-This-Case Gibbs, NCIS.”

“He calls him Sweetheart for short,” Tony says with a sly grin, his eyes raking over the woman’s form. “And I’m Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo… at your service.”

Kali sighs.

Todd’s smile is cold. “Are you sure you’re allowed off leash?” she asks DiNozzo sweetly. “I thought all police dogs were… fixed.”

“Is that an offer?” They eye each other, Tony’s grin turning wide. Gibbs can hear the paperwork rattling onto his desk from HR already.

“Consider it a promise,” she warns him. Her kestrel shuffles his wings, the first interest he’s shown since they’d boarded the plane.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs starts teaching Todd how to process a crime scene. Gibbs didn’t even teach _him_ how to process a crime scene. Well, probably because he’d been a cop and the lessons would have been redundant, but it rankles a bit anyway. What if he _wanted_ to be taught? Gibbs had certainly never spoken to him in that soft, leading tone…

“Jealous, Tony?” Fitz teases, sniffing around the base of the President’s chair. Tony slumps in it, spinning it around and scowling at the blurry flash of the room around him.

“Of Todd? Hardly. Shut it, Rex. You’re way off mark.”

Fitz opens her mouth in a soundless laugh. He wonders what it says about him that a part of himself delights in hurting him so. “Of Gibbs. He is bogarting the company of a very pretty lady, after all. And she’s feisty. We like feisty.”

“Don’t let her hear you call her that,” Gibbs says, appearing in the doorway as though he’d been there all along. He probably had. Tony snaps to attention.

“Don’t let who hear what?” Todd is seconds behind him, and she looks _pissed_. It’s a good look on her. Tony allows himself a moment to imagine the many ways that anger could be put to use, right up until she shoots him a sharp look and his stomach jolts uncomfortably. It’s almost like she knows exactly what he’s thinking. Which, she probably does. She looks at him like Gibbs, as though they’re looking straight through his act to the man underneath. No wonder Fornell had looked faintly relieved to be off the plane. She’d probably be a good investigator, a sort of younger, hotter Jessica Fletcher, if Secret Service ever get their grubby paws off of her anyway.

Oh. Maybe Gibbs isn’t doing this for the hell of it. Interesting recruitment techniques, but Tony’s seen worse. It was about time they replace Vivian, anyway, and there are worse fates than looking at Todd every morning across the bullpen…

If she doesn’t kill the both of them beforehand, anyway.

 

* * *

 

She’s sick, damnit, and right when she needs to be on the top of her game. Her career is riding on this. Gibbs watches her, suspicious or concerned, she can’t tell which, if he’s even capable of feeling concerned. He’s a blank slate, and the few emotions he shows are fleeting and impossible to discern. It’s not that he’s dishonest; she gets the impression that he’s probably the most honest man she’ll meet this year; it’s just that he’s… reserved. Interesting. A far cry from his agent. Baoth reacts to the ripple of displeasure she feels at the thought of Agent DiNozzo, hunching his shoulders and clicking his beak moodily. Of all the cocky, lecherous pigs she’s ever met…

Gibbs is still watching her, his fox dæmon sitting neatly at his feet with her eyes closed, and there’s a trickle of discontent down her spine at the expression he’s wearing. It’s borderline disappointed.

She asks: “You gonna lecture me about sleeping with people you work with?”

“Nope.” The answer is short, blunt. His eyes skim quickly to the door between them and his agent. His body language says everything she needs to know about what he’s thinking.

Oh, not in his _wildest_ dreams. Or her worst nightmares. She has _taste_ after all. It’s insulting, almost. “I’d have to be dead,” she snaps, and Gibbs chuckles. Her and DiNozzo?

Not gonna happen.

 

* * *

 

“Fornell’s not gonna let us have the body, Boss,” Tony says, stepping up beside him. “What are we thinking?”

Gibbs looks down at the body and hums, contemplating. Ducky is seated next to it, his legs crossed, also deep in thought. Beside him, Netta peers about with the wide-eyed guile of a much younger creature, the only thing betraying her age the silver peppering of fur around her tawny muzzle. The porcupine’s quills rattle slightly against the back of the chair when she shifts, an oddly comforting sound.

“They want a body,” Gibbs muses, “so… we give them one.”

Tony blinks. Looks at the body, narrows his eyes, then back at Gibbs. He’s quick. Gibbs doesn’t let any of the pride he feels show on his face. “Fornell is going to _hate_ this,” Tony says finally with an air of satisfied delight. “Who we putting in the bag?”

Gibbs lets a flicker of humour show on his face. “Who else?”

 

* * *

 

“They’re planning something,” Baoth comments as they move towards the door of the jet, ready to meet with the FBI agents they’ve been ordered to turn the body over to. Kate almost wishes they weren’t turning the body over. There’s something entirely _capable_ about Agent Gibbs. If she’s ever murdered, she could do worse than have him investigate it.

Not that she’d have much of a choice in the matter.

She also doesn’t plan on getting murdered.

“He’s not going to be able to wiggle out of this,” she tells her hawk as the door opens. Whatever her dæmon is going to reply with is sharply cut off as someone bustles in, all black lace and pigtails and a huge, excited grin.

“Hi! Oh man, this place looks just like the movie! You know that movie, oh, I can’t remember. Tony would know. Tony! Tony, Tony, Tony! What’s that movie I’m thinking of? The one on Air Force One?”

DiNozzo is there suddenly, charm and bluster oozing from every pore as he steers the woman smoothly around the shell-shocked Kate, as though he hadn’t noticed that a Goth whirlwind has just invaded their jet. “You mean, _Air Force One_ , Abs. The name of the movie is _Air Force One_.”

Of course, he knows her. Kate groans silently. The whole lot of them, mad as March hares.

The woman pauses and pulls a face. Her monkey dæmon clings to her shoulder, resting in the crook of her arm, and mimics the expression. He’s glossy black with vivid crimson markings around a startlingly human face, and Kate thinks that she’s never seen a dæmon more appropriate for its human before. “Is it all like the movie?” she asks, peering down the hallway towards the press cabin before Kate can stop her. “Hey, can you show me the President’s chair? Can I sit in it? Did you sit in it? Did you get pictures?”

“No time for exploring Abby, we’ve got somewhere else to be.” Gibbs. Abby snaps to attention and aims her smile at him instead, face becoming edged with a warm glow of affection.

“Oh.” Abby looks disappointed for a second, before brightening again as though her default setting is ‘overexcited’. Kate’s exhausted just by watching her. And yet, she also can’t help but like her.

Just not on her plane.

“Who is she?” Kate asks sharply, following them as they try to be unobtrusive about leading the new arrival towards the off-ramp. And the body. “What are you planning?”

Gibbs blocks her from following, taking her arm and leading her back towards the door. A rare smile creases his face. “Ducky wanted a second opinion before handing the body over,” he says innocently. “I don’t know anything more, it’s all technical-crap, beyond me.”

Kate blinks. “She’s… one of _yours_? She’s NCIS?”

Gibb’s face turns serious again. “She’s the best of us.”

 

* * *

 

Gibbs hears them coming before he sees them, Abby’s music blaring as they pull into the parking lot. She leaps out the van, running in her excitement to see him. “Gibbs! Want a slushy? We bought you a bubble-gum one. Fornell thought you’d be a grape man, but I didn’t think so. They didn’t have Caf-Pow, so I got sour watermelon. It tastes pink. Can things taste pink?”

Fornell gets out, and Gibbs smiles cheerily at him. “Problem, Tobias?” He’s almost apoplectic with rage. Gibbs can understand—it’s not every day you open a body-bag and find a perky Goth beaming out at you instead of the stiff you’d expected.

It’s an improvement, really.

“If you ever have to pull a stupid stunt like this again in the future,” Tobias says, carefully sounding out each word as though struggling to speak through clenched teeth, “do me a favour and send DiNozzo. At least then I can throw his ass out on the beltway.”

Gibbs chuckles and his friend’s face turns an interesting shade of red. “You tell me how to get a man and an Alsatian into a body-bag together without arousing suspicion and I will.”

 

* * *

 

“She’s cute.” Abby is bobbing along with her music, hands flying over her keyboard as she enters complicated lines of data while barely even glancing at the screen. It hurts Tony’s head to watch her. Her dæmon is crouched on the table over a microscope, tail twitching to the beat. “Agent Todd, that is.”

“Is she?” Tony says innocently, looking down longingly to where he knows their lab tech stashes a futon. The long hours are catching up on him. “Didn’t realize she’s your type.” They really need to replace Vivian. He can’t do the work of two. Even Fitz is drooping.

Abby snorts. “Nothing you can say will convince me you didn’t start perving the moment you saw her,” she says, half-scolding. “Gibbs has his eye on her too. He got all gentlemanly to lead her away… not that he isn’t always gentlemanly, of course.”

There’s a curl of something unhappy deep in Tony’s gut. He can’t place it. He doesn’t want to. A sharp glare aimed at Fitz stops her from piping up with something stupid. “I think Gibbs wants to poach her.”

Mort chatters, looking up and bouncing slightly, carefully avoiding nudging the microscope. Tony patiently waits for the monkey to calm himself, Abby immersed in another load of data and clearly no longer paying attention. “Another girl!” Mort says happily, human-like face turning up into a smile. “Finally, since Viv left, it’s been a sausage fest here.” He shakes his paws, losing the vinyl gloves pulled loosely over them, and hops onto the floor.

It’s not weird talking to Mort. Any other dæmon it would be, but Abby seemed to run on the expectation that if she’s busy, there’s no good reason why her dæmon shouldn’t do the communicating for her. They’ve all adjusted, some faster than others.

“Are you complaining?” Tony asks him. “I mean, all us handsome men. We’re basically workplace eye-candy.”

“That attitude is why HR has Gibbs’ number on speed-dial,” Mort reprimands, scampering over to Abby’s office door. “Futon over here, Tony.”

“Bless you,” Tony says thankfully, clasping his hands as though in benediction. Mort rolls his eyes. There’s a snort from Abby. As Tony lowers himself onto the soft surface gratefully, Fitz laying behind him as his pillow, the music quietens. The only sounds are the skittering of Mort’s claws on the floor and Abby humming softly as she taps at the keyboard.

“Tony?” she calls suddenly. He makes a noise, mind drifting peacefully. “If Gibbs hires Agent Todd… you’ll be careful, right? Don’t do anything… rash.”

His only answer is a snore that convinces no one.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs bails her up in, of all places, the _toilet_ and she’d be infuriated, but then he casually informs her that Kerry is dead. Oh. She reels. She’s vaguely aware of an angry _kree_ from outside as Baoth protests the door between them, but even the kestrel falls silent as her emotions resonate to him. It’s all a blur after that, the grief quick and biting and _furious_. She might have hit Gibbs. She’s not entirely sure. She _is_ sure that she cried in front of him. Normally, that would be mortifying, but right now she doesn’t give two shits what he thinks of her because he is the biggest bastard in the world.

She thinks maybe she might have told him that.

He doesn’t condemn her. He holds her hands to stop her from striking him again, and then pulls her close when she crumples, wrapping his arms around her. After, neither of them mention the damp patch on his shirt or the way she’d shuddered as she’d sobbed in his arms. She doesn’t mention how reassuring it was to find solace in him, as though he was a close family member or a friend instead of a man she’d just met and isn’t entirely sure yet if she likes.

And he doesn’t mention how, when they exit the bathroom, they find Baoth sitting quietly on the floor, leaning against Kali’s foreleg as they wait for their humans.

 

* * *

 

“You don’t trust me,” Gibbs says to Todd once they’ve pushed her reaction to Kerry’s death behind them, both back on duty once more.

Her face is resolute. “I don’t know you.”

He’ll never tell her, but that’s the exactly the moment he decides she’s going to work for him.

She’ll keep DiNozzo on his toes, at least.

 

* * *

 

“Natural toxins, hit me.” Abby closes her eyes and waits, the memory exercise they’d done together since high school familiar and ever useful.

“Pufferfish, poison dart frog, Datura plants, snake, platypus…” Mort’s voice drones on, lilting slightly as he runs through their shared knowledge.

She wrinkles her nose. “Platypus? You really think he got poisoned with _platypus_ venom?”

Mort shrugs. “Australia does have a large concentration of dangerous animals with rare and… Abby.” They look at each and Abby grins. Her dæmon is _brilliant._ It only takes a moment to request the test.

“Rare and almost undetectable,” she says proudly as the result dings positive. Mort holds his paw up so she can high-five him before reaching for the phone. “Ducky? We have snakes on a plane.”

“More specifically,” Mort adds, leaning into view. “We have _taipans_.”

 

* * *

 

Baer isn’t as smug as she’d expected him to be.

“You’re a good agent,” he says awkwardly, taking her resignation with an oddly reconciled expression. “You’ll find work easy. This isn’t the end, Todd.”

She stares at him. “You told me to prove I was good. I fucked up, and _now_ you’re admitting that I am?”

His mouth twitches slightly. “Well, it could have been worse, you have to admit.”

It could have. That doesn’t make it sting less.

She leaves with a heavy heart, her future behind her. Dammit.

“Gibbs,” Baoth says suddenly. She scowls. _Gibbs_. If it wasn’t for him and his pesky way of worming into her head she never… well, maybe she would have… but she’s going to blame him anyway. “No, Kate, it’s Gibbs,” Baoth clarifies, and she turns to find the man himself grinning at her.

“Heard you quit, Agent Todd,” he says. What follows is probably the oddest job offer she’s ever received.

She doesn’t even think twice about accepting.

 

* * *

 

Tony’s phone rings once to his surprise, humming on the greasy surface of the bar. He’s already pleasantly buzzed, the alcohol sizzling through his veins and turning the world silly and delightful. Fitz leans against his leg, yawning contentedly. Another case done, another day gone. A good day. Tony treasures the good days.

He checks the phone, leaving a smear of beer on the screen. Wipes his fingers on his jeans, scrubs at the screen with a knuckle. Squints at it.

**U were right. He totes hired her. Applic came thru 2min ago.**

Abby. Still at work. He should have invited her out.

“We have a new team member,” he tells Fitz, thinking of the sharp-eyed woman and grinning. Life’s about to get _interesting_.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Tony,” Fitz says, the contentment disappearing abruptly as she sits up and glares at him. “You don’t date team members. Pretty sure that’s a top Gibbs rule. Probably the toppiest.”

He rolls his eyes at his dæmon. “I don’t plan on dating her, Reno. I’m not suicidal. And when am I ever stupid?”

His gaze settles on a woman peering in his direction, who smiles when she catches his eye. He drains his beer and stands, ignoring Fitz’s huff of dismay at his nonchalance, but she soon cheers up when the woman’s dæmon, a colourful songbird, begins preening her fur affectionately as Tony chats up his human. And if either Tony or his dæmon note the woman’s resemblance to a certain ex-Secret Service agent, neither of them mention it to each other.

It certainly doesn’t stop them from going home with her.

It’s very probably the beginning of something.


	3. Conflicted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first words Tim McGee ever says to her, in quick succession are, “Hi,” and then a prompt, “Oh, shit,” as he drops his coffee onto her shoes. Followed by apologising for dropping his coffee onto her shoes.

She likes him immediately.

She likes him even more when he straightens from trying to mop up the coffee, his face and ears glowing red, and she catches a glimpse of large, bulbous eyes watching her from his collar. The second the chameleon dæmon notices she’s spotted him, he ripples and fades to a dark shadow, burrowing into McGee’s shirt.

“He’s cute,” she says to Baoth on her way out from Norfolk, absentmindedly watching Tony fumble with the keys.

“He’s timid,” Baoth replies quietly, his eyes following Fitz as she itches at her ear with a gangly hind leg while trying to walk and almost falling over.

Kate thinks of Tony accidently brushing against her in the elevator, or ever so subtly sneaking his number onto the cell of any female unfortunate enough to pass within a mile of him. “Good. We need more timid in our lives.”

Baoth chuckles darkly. “Somehow, I don’t think Gibbs likes timid.”

 

* * *

 

“What do you think of McGee?” Gibbs asks him later that night as Tony is finishing his report. Fitz is a warm weight on his lower legs, taking the chance to snooze while he paper-works his life away. Tony considers. Gibbs will see straight through him if he tries to colour his opinion to match his boss’s. He doesn’t consider for long though, because that will piss him off too.

“He’s geeky, awkward, probably a virgin…” Tony pauses as Gibbs growls softly in his throat, “…and he’s got the potential to be a damn fine agent one day, if they don’t let him rot at Norfolk. Why?”

He can feel eyes watching him even without looking. On anyone else, it would be unsettling, but with Gibbs… it’s comforting. Tony has the slightest suspicion that he might even enjoy being the centre of that fierce regard, a position that no one else envies. He also has a suspicion that he might be insane. “Probably going to see more of him.”

Tony sizes up Timothy McGee in his mind, from his carefully shined shoes that don’t quite hide the spots of wear to his reticent reptile dæmon. And he is computer smart… something neither Tony nor Gibbs are. “Okay,” he says finally, and Gibbs smiles slightly.

Tony basks in it.

 

* * *

 

Her first suspicion that there’s more to DiNozzo that meets the eye is the way Gibbs is around him. She’s seen the older man treat everyone with the same sort of cautious regard that you grow to maintain when you trust absolutely no one else. No one else, except for his second in command. If Gibbs says jump, Tony is already five foot in the air, and she’s seen her boss reach for a file only to have Tony hand it to him all without a single word passing between them. It’s bizarre. It’s odd.

She’s jealous.

She’s never had that kind of rapport with anyone.

“They’ve been working together practically forever, that’s why,” Abby says cheerfully when the two of them meet up for a ‘girls of NCIS’ bar crawl. “And Gibbs has freaky mind powers like you wouldn’t believe.”

“They just seem so… opposite,” Kate explains, thinking of the silent man and his boisterous, pigheaded subordinate.

Abby laughs. “Gibbs and Tony? They’re not opposite at all. Why do you think Gibbs hired you? And why do you think he’s sniffing around McGee? They’re way too alike, it’s scary. I bet they even use the same shampoo. Tony’s just better at hiding his inner Gibbsness.”

It’s Kate’s turn to laugh. “Tony? Hide? I don’t think he’s capable. The man is an open book.”

For the first time, Abby’s smile falters. Mort chatters and taps her arm and the smile reappears. “I think you should look closer,” Abby says eventually, before downing her drink with a skill Kate’s brothers would envy.

So, Kate does.

 

* * *

 

He hears the door open above his head and it only takes five echoing footsteps for him to know who it is and their state. When Tony slinks through the basement door and promptly almost tumbles down the stairs, Gibbs just lowers his block of sandpaper and sighs. Kali peers out from under the table and makes a disapproving noise as Fitz walks into the back of Tony’s legs and finishes the job. They wait in silence as his senior agent picks himself up off the floor and smiles up at them.

“‘Lo Boss,” he slurs, trying to get up and failing.

Gibbs shakes his head. “Stay there, DiNozzo. You’re gonna smack your head again and, god knows, the last thing you need is more concussions.” Tony tries to answer but just groans. Gibbs makes a mental note to make sure the idiot didn’t drive here as he steps over him and jogs up the steps to the kitchen for water. He glances at the calendar on the way and flinches. He should have remembered that. “You could have reminded me,” he scolds the drunk man as he passes him the glass of water and sits on the step next to him. Tony smells like cheap booze and perfume. There’s pink glitter on his sleeve, and Gibbs resists the urge to brush it off. “I have steak in the fridge.” All he receives in return is a weary shake of the head. Something twinges in his chest. He’s so used to Tony smiling and parading through life, it’s always sobering in the moments when he’s too tired to keep the act up. Even Fitz is strangely quiet for once, watching them both with bleary eyes and drooping ears that match the slump to her human’s shoulders.

He knows his part in this. They’ve done it every year. The only difference this year is that Tony came to him—an improvement over the first year when he’d received a call to go pick him up from where he was sleeping it off in lock-up. Or the year before, when he’d found him asleep in his car outside NCIS.

“Bed, Tony,” he says, slinging an arm around him and heaving him up the stairs. Fitz and Kali trail after. He ignores the way Tony’s warm weight against him makes his skin hum slightly, longingly. He’s long put that behind him. He knows if he turns he’ll find Kali walking pressed against Fitz’s side, allowing herself this moment to be close to her while she’s too disorientated to reject them. It’s pathetic. He hates himself for the way his tangled-up mind hurts his fox.

He doesn’t turn. Instead, he eases Tony into the spare bed, the man pliant and obedient. Fitz oozes up next to him, Kali still close. She leans her narrow muzzle into the thick fur of Fitz’s ruff, nudging her one last time.

Tony closes his eyes and drops his arm onto his dæmon.

His fingers brush against Kali’s snout and the fox jerks out of reach, the sensation burning through her and her human alike. Gibbs holds his breath for a moment, the electric jolt of it going straight through his stomach, and lower.

He backs away, taps the light off quickly. “Happy birthday, DiNozzo,” he says instead. His voice is gruff, hiding the huskiness he knows is there.

“Thanks, Boss,” comes the groggy reply, then silence.

 

* * *

 

Tony waits until his boss closes the door, then curses very quietly to himself. His fingers tingle where they’d accidentally touched Gibbs’ dæmon—and just what was she doing so close to Fitz anyway? He hadn’t meant to do it, and now he’s stuck with the dizzying sensation of having trailed his hand along the most intimate part of his boss, and an uncomfortable heat in his groin that suggests he may have liked it more than he’ll ever admit. Gibbs didn’t shoot him, so he supposes the man is simply assuming that Tony is too drunk to control his extremities and is going downstairs to try and scrub the traces of him from him and his dæmon both.

“Sorry, boss,” he whispers to himself, Fitz whining very softly and burrowing her nose under his pillow in shared shame. He tries to ignore everything else.

That proves difficult.

“Still straight,” he assures himself, pressing his palm down against the front of his pants and thinking of women, Baywatch, Playboy magazines. The centrefold last month with the blonde hair and brown doe-eyes you could die for. _Still straight,_ he chants desperately in his head as the centrefold watches him with eyes of icy blue, the memory of silky fur still traced on his skin. Fitz growls, the noise muffled by the pillow.

Definitely straight.

 

* * *

 

When he thinks no one is watching him, Tony’s smile slips very slightly.

“It’s an act,” Kate says to Baoth one day, looking up and finding Tony intently scribbling something obscene onto a post-it note and attempting to pin it to McGee’s back. “Is he really so insecure?”

Baoth is often smarter than her. “Maybe he’s lonely,” the kestrel suggests.

Kate realizes she can sympathize.

 

* * *

 

Tony makes a mistake. It’s the kind of mistake that doesn’t really matter if you make it when someone has your back, except of course he makes it when Gibbs is over the other side of the yard with the green-as-grass McGee, and he has Kate Todd on his six.

He doesn’t check the closet.

His second mistake is when Fitz growls low in her throat, and he turns to find himself staring down the barrel of a gun. His second mistake is when he, for a moment, forgets that Kate is his partner and an agent, and he doesn’t say anything because, he has a sudden mental image of her walking unprepared into the room and that gun going off and the sound of Taps playing at a government funded funeral that isn’t his.

The man holding the gun has terrible trigger discipline. Tony watches with interest as his finger slips around, sweat making his grip unsteady. His life might not even end by conscious choice. It could just be a sneeze that does it.

It seems appropriate really.

The dæmons face each other, Fitz staring down the wide eyes of a skittish sand cat; no one makes a sound.

“Drop the weapon,” Kate says calmly, and presses her own against the guy’s back.

Disaster averted. Score one for teamwork.

“Knew you’d come,” he says to her with a wide grin. She turns her head slowly to stare at him with an expression that suggests she can see straight through his act. She has brown eyes, he notes distantly. Brown, not blue. He likes brown eyes.

“Were you going to let him shoot you?” she asks incredulously. Her dæmon twitches.

“No,” he says calmly. It’s only half a lie.

 

* * *

 

They go out for drinks, and after Kate would wonder how it happened. Baoth points out that she’s always had a soft spot for damaged people and, as it turned out, that description fits Anthony DiNozzo to a tee.

Gibbs doesn’t come, citing boat reasons.

Tim and Abby arrive, Abby gets Tim drunk, and then they both vanish within a markedly short amount of time of each other. Kate decides not to think about that one too much. It leaves her and Tony, the worst possible combination because they both have a competitive streak the width of a four-lane highway and she can’t bear to let him drink her under the table. When they stumble from the bar and he catches her arm and pushes her roughly against the wall, his mouth finding hers with a practised ease that suggests he’s done this many times before, it’s a surprise.

More of a surprise is realizing how much she doesn’t want to push him away.

But she does and, to his credit, he goes. Steps back and regards her with a vaguely disappointed, vaguely relieved expression.

“Just had to get that out of your system?” she teases him, straightening her shirt, because what else can she say?

He smiles for a second but it’s his fake smile, and it vanishes just as quickly as it appears. He opens his mouth, staring at her blankly as though he’s forgotten how to speak. Then, he turns and walks away, and she doesn’t know whether she should follow or let him go.

So, she does neither. She goes back into the bar and tries not to think too hard about it.

 

* * *

 

He ignores the fact that kissing Kate felt wrong and pretends it was just another night out.

“That was stupid,” Fitz mumbles from under his desk as he tries not to look over at Kate’s empty desk. “What happened to rule twelve?”

“It was a mistake,” he snaps back, kicking her gently. “Shut up. She…”

“Was there, pretty, and, most of all, female? Or is this little freak-out because you actually felt something for someone besides lust? And you think you used her to prove a point… which you kinda did.”

Tony glares. He didn’t sign up for a fuzzy conscious with bad breath. “You know, I’m pretty sure if I tape your mouth shut, you don’t have the thumbs to deal with it.” Gibbs and Abby cut his musing short. It takes one glance for Tony to tell that something, somewhere, has gone horribly wrong. “Hey boss. What’s up, Abs?” He stands, Fitz leaning out between his legs. Abby’s eyes dart about guiltily, Mort shivering on her shoulder.

“Tony, get autopsy on the plasma,” Gibbs says, and he’s using his ‘someone is getting shot today’ voice. Tony doesn’t question it, just obeys.

Snow. Fuzzy, frustrating, useless snow.

Ten minutes later Gibbs is using the words ‘hostage situation’, Fitz has gone painfully still, and all Tony can think of it Kate’s empty desk and the feel of her heart beating against his.


	4. Reckless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you know what Baoth stands for, Caitlin?” The man circles her for all the world like a vulture hanging over the desiccated remains of his meal, and Kate can’t think straight while Gerald’s groans grow weaker and Ducky is within inches of the bastard’s gun. She’d call him a madman, but one look into his eyes tells her otherwise. Their captor is terrifyingly sane and not at all frightened of her remembering his face.

That’s worrying.

“No,” she says coolly, refusing to break eye contact with him. Sweat trickles down her neck. Baoth hisses from where the sleek scarlet snake is wrapped around him. One wing is bent out crookedly, feathers scattered around; he’s watching her beseechingly, his beak gaping. The snake coils, tightens, and lifts its head to stare her down.

She won’t show them how much it hurts.

The man steps closer, his breath hot on her face. It smells of mint and his eyes are green.

“Reckless,” he says, and smiles. “Are you reckless, Agent Todd?”

She grips the scalpel tightly against her hip, just out of his view. Imagines slamming it into his abdomen. Imagines that smile fading, those green eyes turning blank. Imagines the shower of gold as the snake crushing her soul dies with him. “Give me my gun and you’ll find out.”

He laughs. Even over the icy sound, she hears Ducky inhale sharply as he sees what’s in her hand. “I think that answers my question, don’t you?” the man says.

She loosens her grip and looks away first.

 

* * *

 

He says the words, and Tony goes cold. Gibbs watches it happen. He’s seen it before, only twice. Once when they’d found the murdered bodies of two six-year-olds by the hands of their father. The second, when they were mere minutes too late to save the life of a man who Tony had only the day before connected with.

It scares Gibbs every time, because when it happens, he can see how easy it would be for Tony to fail to come back from it. He imagines Fitz’s coat as dark as Kali’s and the thought twists something nameless in his chest. It’s not Tony’s face that gives it away. Gibbs doesn’t make a habit of relying on facial expressions to tell him what he needs to know, especially when it concerns his second, the only man Gibbs knows who can shape his face like a sculptor shapes clay, masking even the strongest of emotions. It’s his dæmon.

It’s Fitz.

Gone are the puppy dog eyes and the one crookedly held ear. She doesn’t gambol, she doesn’t bound. She goes stiff and bristling and stands like she’s ready to lunge after prey. There’s a curl to her muzzle and a snap to her eyes. Dæmons don’t hunt humans as a general rule, but Gibbs looks at her now and sees how she could. When she’s like this, even Kali keeps away, because Kali’s a fox and no fox would risk that hunting gaze. Gibbs doesn’t have that option.

“Keep your head,” he says, and Tony smiles widely.

“Only one I have, boss,” he replies, and laughs. Pacci is behind him setting up their surveillance. At the sound of that laugh, he twitches away. It’s edged with a snarl and much more at home on his dæmon, but she’s gone silent and terrifyingly still and it’s never going to get any less unsettling. Later, before this ends but after that moment, Gibbs follows Tony to the bathroom and Tony turns on him and his mask slips. Cold, hard fury on his face—not aimed at Gibbs but it may as well be, because Gibbs is supposed to keep his team safe, and he’s failed that in their own workplace.

“He’s a dead man,” Tony says calmly.

Gibbs nods and doesn’t break eye contact. “Let’s make sure he’s the only one.”

 

* * *

 

Gerald’s dæmon is the prettiest cat Kate’s ever seen. The sight of her glossy white fur stained with his blood would be the most horrifying part of this if Baoth wasn’t still tightly entwined in the looped grasp of their captor’s snake.

“What’s her name?” the man asks, leaning over Gerald and examining Ducky’s handiwork. Kate clenches her fist and tries not to glance to the corner where her dæmon struggles. One wrong move, and she’ll have a bullet in her heart. One wrong move, and Baoth will have venom-laced fangs in his breast. She’s helpless.

“Go to hell,” Gerald moans. His cat mewls, her sides heaving as she shares his pain. She’s curled against him and her eyes are glazed, fogged with white at the corners. Ducky stares at her with a closed off expression; Netta sidles closer.

The man looks bored. “Did you know the spitting cobra has a range of up to about six feet when spraying venom?”

“Six point six,” Ducky says quietly, and his eyes slide across to the snake. The snake eyes him back.

Gerald’s dæmon begins to purr frantically.

 

* * *

 

“She’s going to be alright, you know.”

Tony turns to glare at Pacci as the older agent speaks. Pacci stares back without even flinching. “What was that, Pacci-ato?” Pacci swallows. They’re alone in the elevator. Waiting. For what, Tony doesn’t want to contemplate. Something to go right upstairs, probably.

Or something to go wrong downstairs.

“Kate.” Pacci’s dæmon is a parrot and it nibbles at his ear as he talks. He does an admirable job of ignoring it. “She’s tough as nails. If anyone can get out of this, she can.”

“I know that. I know that better than you. Why are you telling me this? I’m her partner.” Try as he might, Tony thinks he may have failed at keeping the snap out of his voice. Fitz watches silently.

Pacci’s radio crackles. It’s almost go-time. Gibbs is done being Gibbsy and is ready to kick ass. Tony wishes he was beside him. He’s needed elsewhere though. “Stay ready, Pacci,” he says quietly, and moves out.

 

* * *

 

He tries to get them into the autopsy drawers.

Ducky chuckles, the humour not reaching his eyes. “I’m not quite ready for that yet, young man,” he says, one hand on Gerald’s chest protectively. The cat is silent now. “And I don’t think my dæmon is quite suited to enclosed spaces, not without things becoming rather dire in there.” He gestures to Netta’s spikes. Netta is on her hind legs, staring at a point just past Kate’s leg absently, as though she hasn’t a care in the world. Her tail shifts on the floor, spines rustling. Their captor barely spares her a glance.

Kate is instantly suspicious.

“I’m not getting in there without Baoth,” she says, digging her heels in. Having a flimsy aircraft partition between her and her kestrel is one thing; having a solid steel door between them with Baoth on the side of a man with a gun… unthinkable. Her very core rebels at the idea.

Their captor opens his mouth, his handsome face turning irate, and Netta chooses that moment to move. The snake’s cold eyes are fixed on its human. It doesn’t even have time to react as the porcupine moves with startling speed, claws skittering on the tiles as she whirls and flicks her tail at the snake, peppering it with a clattering of quills. None stick, but the snake is startled enough that it doesn’t put up a fight when Baoth explodes from its grasp with a furious _keeyaw_.

“Yes, of course the belief that a normal porcupine can shoot its quills as an archer would an arrow is quite untrue,” Ducky says quickly, not backing down when the terrorist turns on him with an annoyed sound. “But Netta is a dæmon and, in our youth, we spent considerable amounts of time practising the trick. They do very little damage, very much like throwing a handful of skewers. Like magic. A diversion…” He trails off, and they all watch the gun.

There’s a long beat of silence that seems to drag on for an eternity, broken only by the unconscious gasp of relief Kate makes when Baoth lands on her shoulder and tucks himself, quivering, against her neck. She can feel his heartbeat thundering against her skin. Then, their captor laughs. His snake moves sinuously, twining around his feet and flaring its hood angrily at the smug looking porcupine. “Well played, doctor. I could see that the continued captivity of Caitlin’s dæmon was upsetting you. I must admit, I was not expected such a showy rescue. I applaud your determination. Now if you will please… do as I say.”

Kate waits until the door is closed on Ducky, Netta chittering nervously as she’s sealed into the neighbouring body drawer. Alone. “Gibbs is going to destroy you,” she snaps, sliding her legs into the opening he gestures towards. The gun is loose in his hand, but she’s not close enough to grab at it. Baoth’s talons click on the steel table as he shuffles deeper into the hollow, waiting for her to join him. She’s not leaving him out here.

“I doubt that very much.” He leans down and peers in as she lays flat on the drawer and he pushes it the rest of the way in. She can’t help but feel vulnerable on her back. “Goodbye, Caitlin. I look forward to our next meeting.”

“I look forward to shooting you.”

He shuts the door and leaves them in darkness.

 

* * *

 

“Why not?” the terrorist says, and Gibbs fires.

Kali stays by his side, but the snake by his gapes open its mouth and rears back. Gibbs knows what it’s going to do seconds before it does it. There’s a bullet in his shoulder that burns like a bitch, and he knows he’s lost this standoff because the floor is tilting out from under him but, on his way down, he still manages to curl his body over his dæmon and stop the spray of venom from touching her. It splatters harmlessly across his shirt and he wonders, _where’s DiNozzo?_

 

* * *

 

Tony isn’t quick enough; two men die in front of him before he gets his gun into position. He would have died too, but Fitz has never been shy about getting her teeth bloody; she takes out the shooter from behind and sinks her teeth into his throat without making a sound. He could shoot the guy, he _should_ shoot the guy because a man dying with his dæmon’s bite marks on his neck is going to raise a whole heap of questions about his mental state, but he hesitates.

The man’s dæmon shrills once, some kind of dull feathered bird, and he stops hesitating. Clicks his tongue. Fitz leaps back, the man’s fist connecting dully with her shoulder as she releases him and sending a shuddering shockwave through the both of them. Tony nails him in the chest and the bird showers them both with gold. There’s gold everywhere from three vanished dæmons. He could run his hand through Fitz’s fur and have it come away looking like he’s spent his day getting a lap dance from a woman named Candy. Except, there are few places tacky enough to stock gold glitter. There’s not exactly a roaring trade for it.

His radio crackles as he stands over the man he’s killed and memorises his face. The wrong face. Dressed in their gear and not the man he’s been ogling through a security feed.

Fitz licks her lips clean and he’s strangely disappointed.

 

* * *

 

“Gibbs figures he was wearing a bullet proof vest all along.” Tony is examining her while he talks. Kate glares at him. Shouldn’t he be off making sure Gibbs isn’t causing a ruckus with the poor medics trying to patch up his shoulder?

“He was. I felt it,” she says. She can’t place why Tony looks so… odd… right now.

His eyebrows shoot up. She realizes what it is. Fitz is still, just watching, not moving. “You felt it? Well, how close did you get to feel it?” He steps closer, close enough that she can smell the acrid bite of sweat on his skin and clothes. “Close enough to touch him.” His eyes are dark.

“Close enough to stab him with the knife in my hand.”

“And you didn’t.”

“No.” Something glints in the light on his arm. She’s still thinking about Gibbs’ blood on the floor of autopsy and Gerald’s dæmon, which is why she doesn’t stop herself from reaching out and scrubbing the pad of her thumb across the skin of his bicep. He pulls away like she’s burned him. To avoid him seeing the way her cheeks flush, she examines her thumb.

Gold. She feels sick.

Fitz whines.

 

* * *

 

“Kate.” Gibbs catches her before she leaves and looks her up and down carefully. “You alright?”

She huffs a dark laugh and tucks her arm close to her chest. Baoth is, for once, perched on her wrist instead of her shoulder, tucked close. He’s seen that clinginess before in dæmons, usually after one of the pair has suffered some sort of physical confrontation.

“I was held hostage and shoved into a body drawer, Gibbs. And you were shot. I really need a drink, for one thing.”

Kali’s muzzle wrinkles in a silent snarl he feels rather than sees at the idea of the man or his dæmon touching one of his. He nods, instead of saying any of this. “You did good in there.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

_That’s not true,_ he thinks. “You didn’t die.”

She almost laughs, then she seems to reconsider. “You have low expectations of us. Even Tony’s managed to not die so far.”

He shoves away the mental image that tries to assail him before it can show on his face. Tony, bloodied. Tony, shot. Tony in one of the myriad of ways they could die any day, without warning. This time, in the old nightmare, Kate joins him.

He knows what he’ll dream about tonight.

“We’ll get him,” he says softly and they both know they’re not talking about Tony anymore. “I promise you that.”

She cocks her head. “So long as I get to shoot the bastard when we do.”

“Only if you beat me there.”

 

* * *

 

There’s a knock on her door. Somehow, she’s not surprised that it’s Tony.

“What do you want?” she says in lieu of greeting, horribly aware that she’s in her most obnoxiously purple flannel pyjamas, decorated with dancing toothbrushes with wide, maniacal grins. They’re the baggiest ones she has. The most comfortable. She’s craving comfort tonight.

“Drinking alone?” he asks, leaning against her door-frame and gesturing to the bottle of beer in her hand. Fitz bows down onto her front paws behind him, mouth hanging open in a grin and back end almost wagging off. Kate’s pleased to see that she’s apparently only taken three hours to recover from their day. She’s also envious.

“I almost got shot today. I think I deserve a beer. Better question is, why aren’t you drinking? You killed someone today.” She has to hand it to him, the mask barely flickers. She wonders if he’ll ever let her know the real DiNozzo. She wonders if he even knows the real DiNozzo.

“He had it coming.” He steps forward and she doesn’t back up to give him space even though her pulse suddenly catches on to his proximity and starts rushing giddily.

She should probably stop this right now before it begins.

Baoth glides past and lands awkwardly on the ruff of Fitz’s neck, running his beak gently along her ear. Kate sees Tony shiver at the sudden touch.

She’s not the only one craving comfort.

His thumb traces the skin of her arm, mimicking her earlier touch, except his leaves a swathe of goosebumps behind that she knows he has to be aware of.

“Rule twelve,” she says, instead of saying no, because his face has gone dark and intent. It’s been a long time, and she’d be lying if she didn’t want this to go further than a touch.

“We’re not dating,” he replies. It’s a statement and a question all at once. This is a mistake. She lets him in anyway.

Sometimes, she’s reckless.


	5. Comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She doesn’t consciously profile the men she sleeps with, but sometimes she just can’t help herself. And Tony like this, laid bare in front of her; it’s an opportunity she can’t pass up. She could already tell, from the moment he’d wrapped his arms around her and kissed her like she was the only girl he’d ever kissed, that he’s the kinda guy to completely lose himself in whatever woman he’s seducing. It’s a surprising realization, when everything up till now had pointed to him being a big jerk wearing a jerk mask with a creamy jerk centre.

The mask slips when he kisses her though. His eyes are wide and vulnerable. It’s so opposite everything that she is, that she almost tells him this is a mistake. She’s always been the strong one, but he’s supposed to be strong too, and there’s a hunger in him that she can’t possibly sate. But she doesn’t, because his hands are deft and her shirt is already off and there’s a buzzing sensation of _touch_ on skin that’s not hers and it’s driving her insane.

She glances around for her dæmon out of habit and finds him tucked against Fitz. The dog is nuzzling against her bird with an affection that threatens to stop her heart. Dammit, Tony. He was supposed to be _more_ of a jerk underneath all the masks and deceits. He wasn’t supposed to be… _this_. But they’re already in the bedroom; the door slams behind them and her ass hits the bed. There’s no turning back now.

Despite his care, it’s fast and almost rough. That’s good, because it’s what she needs right now. She lets him crowd on top of her as she lays on her back in the bed, kicking her pants off awkwardly. The calluses on his fingers scratch against the thin skin of her hip as he pulls her underwear down to follow. They kiss again when they’ve managed to shed the important clothes, her bra still on and one sock dangling tentatively from his foot. He’s hasty now, eager, and their teeth clatter together and catch her lip. She wraps a leg around him, hauling him down; he’s warm and hard, nipping at the skin of her throat impatiently.

They haven’t spoken, not really, aside from gasps and a single startled moan from him when she’d mouthed roughly at his neck and let her teeth scrape against his skin. She rolls her hips up, the warm heat that had coiled in her groin since he’d first looked at her in the doorway igniting into a delicious blaze of desire that leaves her craving the friction of his body.

“Easy, tiger,” he mumbles into her shoulder. She yanks him against her using the leg that’s wrapped around his. He slides down, hard between her legs, so he can feel just how easy she doesn’t want to take it, and his eyes darken. “Or not.”

“I vote not,” she says, rolling her eyes at him. “Bedside cupboard. Protection. Now.” The wait for him to fumble around is aggravating, and she puffs hair out of her face impatiently, regretting not tying it back. Not like they’d had a chance, anyway.

Finally, he’s ready and, more importantly, she’s _beyond_ ready.

She wonders for a split second if this is far too much like using him, since they still have to look at each other in the morning. But then, he’s pressing into her and they’re both moving together, and she really doesn’t have time to think that much more about it. She grits her teeth as her body stutters towards the end ridiculously quickly, tension building and sharpening tenfold when his hand slips down and rests in the perfect position for her to rock against just right, even as he moves within her. His other hand rests on her hip, rubbing the skin softly in the same rhythm as their shifting bodies, an oddly gentle counterpoint. This would be embarrassing, but it really has been a while and he’s not doing so well himself.

“Not normally this… ah,” he stammers out, closing his eyes, cut off from whatever ridiculous sentence his mouth had tried to create without the use of his brain. “Oh, _fuck.”_

She’s not much of a talker in bed, disliking the air of disorder it tends to give her, but dammit if the dark tone his voice has taken on doesn’t go straight to her crotch. She can feel herself clenching around him, knows he can feel it too by his shaky, uneven thrusts as he loses his rhythm.

“Come on Tony,” she teases, fingers digging into his back as she tugs him deeper, his hips stilling against hers as he bottoms out. Twitches. Dances on the edge. She pushes him over without a care for his heart. “I want to feel it when you come.”

He stiffens and she can feel the pulse of him, pulling him tighter, his heart hammering against her chest even through his shirt. “Jesus, Kate,” he pants, pressing his face against her shoulder. He lifts his head and kisses her, and, just like that, she’s coming as well, riding the waves of it under him as his kiss turns wet and desperate, panting into her mouth, trembling slightly. Then, he collapses, still breathing heavily and softening inside her. She contemplates what they’ve done here.

Gibbs is probably going to be really pissed about this.

She turns her head to press her mouth against his ear as his breathing evens out. “If you try to sneak out before I wake up,” she murmurs into his ear, her voice tight. “I will shoot you, DiNozzo. You don’t fuck and go here.”

He tenses and there’s a long moment where she wonders if they should have had this conversation _before_ the sex. “Fine,” he says, and slides out of her. “But I’m not sleeping on the wet spot.”

Despite that, he does.

 

* * *

 

For the first time in years, Tony wakes up and he’s not alone.

He never stays. Not the full night, anyway.

The panic is instant and would be paralysing, except he’s burning with the godawful _need_ to be anywhere but here with all his vulnerabilities on show. He doesn’t look at her as he slips out of the bed. He doesn’t look at her bare skin on the sheets, or the way his hands shake, and he doesn’t look at his dæmon asleep in the corner of the room because he knows all he’ll see is bristling fur and bared teeth.

“Tony,” says Fitz quietly, and he stops. He’s holding his pants and he can’t turn the leg right way out, and he’s not sure where his keys are and he _can’t breathe._ “ _Tony_.” He looks at her. At her wide brown eyes and the swirl of the tan fur on her chest and the gentle way her tail taps on the ground. She’s not angry. She’s not panicking. He clings to that.

Then, he looks again. At the kestrel tucked against her side, head against his chest, sleeping peacefully. Touching her. Touching, Fitz… snuggling?

“What are you doing?” he whispers, hearing Kate move in the bed, her breathing changing tempo. Waking up, slowly. “We should go.”

Fitz breathes in deeply, turning her head to lean her nose against the bird. “We should stay,” she corrects him. “We’re tired of being lonely. And I like them.”

He stays.

 

* * *

 

They place bets on how long until McGee snaps under the pressure of Gibbs’ foul temper, exacerbated tenfold by the still healing bullet hole in his shoulder. Kate says two weeks. She’s got plenty of faith in him. If McGee couldn’t cut it, he wouldn’t be here. Others aren’t quite so kind. Tony says a day. He underestimates people, especially when he puts them beside Gibbs and tries to measure them against the man. Kate would worry about the hero-worship thing he has going for his boss, but she’s pretty sure it’s such an integral part of who Tony just _is_ that, without it, he’d only be half of himself. Although, if Tony ever looks at her like he looks at Gibbs, she’s going to run a mile. That kind of look is usually followed by a ring and vows of eternal faithfulness, and she doesn’t do either.

Abby says eight days. She teeters between Tony and Kate on the level of trusting McGee. Kate’s pretty sure that she’s probably going to be right as well, since she’s also pretty sure that they’re sleeping together. Although, if McGee has the balls to take on Abby in her coffin, maybe he’ll handle Gibbs a lot better than they expect him to.

Ducky just smiles and doesn’t answer.

And, later that week, when McGee is facing another tirade from the angry ex-marine, she’s startled to see Chitta slipping down to the floor and curling her tail around Kali’s leg soothingly, murmuring something inaudible.

Kali’s hackles lower and she lays down, flicking her tail once.

Gibbs stops shouting.

And Kate, once again, reconsiders just exactly what McGee is made of.

 

* * *

 

The fourth time they sleep together, he asks her what they’re doing. She’s on top, sweat coating her skin and her mouth open, almost breathless. Not undone though. Not once has he seen her undone, not even like this. He wonders what it would take to clear that acuity from her gaze, so much like her dæmon’s, just for a moment. What he has to do to make her stop thinking and give in to her emotions for once.

“Relieving stress,” she answers, smiling. It’s a hawk smile. A kestrel smile. Sharp and keen, and it doesn’t reach her eyes. Always cautious. “It’s the number one killer of adult males, you know.”

“Are you calling me old?” he retorts, rocking his hips up. She moves with him without missing a beat, not thrown for an instant.

“Prove otherwise,” she pants. It’s a challenge.

He gets the feeling that she’s full of those.

 

* * *

 

Tony is late one day, which isn’t unusual. Kate is late too, even later than Tony, and that _is_ unusual.

Gibbs watches as she rushes in exactly eleven minutes after Tony had sauntered in with his hair still damp and a sheepishly cocky expression on his face. Baoth is on her shoulder, her own hair pulled back into a messy ponytail that looks odd on her. Walking over to her desk, he ignores her apologies and drops the files Morrow had sent down in front of her keyboard. Turns away and does the same for Tony. He catches Tony’s eye and his scent at the same time, and it’s an unpleasant sensation rather like his stomach dropping an inch in his gut at once.

“Nice soap,” he comments, and he can sense Kate freezing behind him. “Must be on sale this week, since Todd’s wearing it too.”

Tony’s face doesn’t slip, but Kate groans.

Busted.

“Rule twelve, DiNozzo,” he says, quieter, hiding the frustrating mix of (justified) anger and (unjustified) jealously. But Tony doesn’t even look remotely sorry. Gibbs is thankful for that. If Tony had stood in front of him and tried to apologise, Gibbs would have written him up then and there.

“We’re not dating, boss,” Tony says instead.

“Don’t be a smartass,” Gibbs snaps, and turns away. His shoulder aches. He blames his mood on that, and the terrorist they still don’t have a lead on. The terrorist that they should all be focusing on catching, the one that had sauntered into _his_ territory and sauntered straight out again without a scratch. The terrorist that was free and breathing while Tony thought with his dick and not his brain. Yeah, that’s it. He’s pissed because Tony’s shirking his duty, and that’s it.  Fitz sidles up to Kali and opens her mouth in a placating doggy grin, but Kali rolls her eyes and slinks under the desk where the bigger dog can’t reach her.

This is a goddamn mess.

McGee catches up on the cryptic conversation ten seconds later and his squawk of horror is almost distracting enough to lift Gibbs’ mood. Almost.

 

* * *

 

A sharp beak cuts into her wrist, and she flinches.

“Careful,” she tells her dæmon, craning around to try and look at him as he tugs ineffectually at the knots with his agile talons. “Ow.”

“Careful was not getting disarmed and tied up,” he replies curtly. “We’re past careful. Are you sure you don’t want me to get McGee?”

“Oh god, no. The last thing we need is him getting shot with my gun. Hurry up.” She wriggles and the rope cuts into her wrist. There’s going to be marks to show for this little adventure, and good fucking luck hiding those from eagle-eyed Gibbs and the equally keen and twice as annoying Tony. Maybe she can convince them she’d gotten them by choice. Although, on second thoughts, that could lead to Tony getting the… wrong idea.

A snick of the rope and she’s free, right as McGee wheels through the door with his gun out and finger on the trigger.

“Watch your front,” she warns him sharply. “Gibbs would shoot you if he saw that trigger discipline.”

“What happened?” he asks, lowering the gun and flushing red, right as a squeal of brakes outside signals her assailants escape.

She examines her wrists critically, the red rawness to the skin where the rope had cut and burned and where Baoth’s beak had clipped her. “A complication,” she says, shaking her head and reaching for her phone to call Gibbs.

 

* * *

 

He goes straight for the rope-burns on her wrist, hiding the spark of anger he feels behind an easy grin and careful teasing. “Jeez Kate, I didn’t realize you were so adventurous,” is his first go, and she just sighs at him. He’s losing his touch. He’ll have to practice his hazing on the probie some more, sharpen his skills. He tries again: “You know, if this is how you’re going to interrogate suspects, we could make bank by filming it. Might even be able to buy Gibbs a real boat.”

The barest hint of warmth on his back, and Fitz giggles. Tony sighs, “Whose side are you on? Kate, I can understand, but you’re supposed to love me.”

“You even know what a real boat looks like, DiNozzo?” Gibbs asks, the familiar growl back in his voice. Tony’s glad. The past two weeks since Gibbs had made him and Kate’s ‘thing’ had been sorely lacking in Gibbsiness, and it was making Abby twitchy.

“Sure do, boss. Big, made of wood and capable of teleportation. You ever gonna tell us how… ow. I deserved that.” Kate snorts ungracefully as Tony rubs at the back of his head. Gibbs stalks away, probably to hide his smile, at least, Tony’s pretty sure he’s smiling. How could he not be? His jokes are on _point_ today. “Where were we?” he asks, grinning down at Kate. She leans back in her chair, tilting her head back and exposing the curve of her neck. He tries not to openly ogle it, but he’s pretty sure she knows. She’s pretty cluey like that.

“You were inferring a lot from very little,” she says. “So, nothing out of the ordinary for you. Tell me again just how you became a cop?”

Ouch.

He’s good. But she’s better.

 

* * *

 

There’s a knock at her door, and she opens it to find him standing there with his dæmon at his side, a shit-eating grin and a length of silk rope in his hands. “You’re kidding me,” she deadpans, staring at the rope.

“No,” he responds, smirking. “Well, yes. But your face. Ha!”

She’s not sure who she pissed off in a past life to earn her the plague of Tony in this one, but she’s pretty sure it involved murdering puppies, somehow. Baoth cranes his head from where he’s perched on her bookshelf, staring at the rope as Tony walks in.

“I’m not untying you this time,” he says, shuffling his wings. “I’m not even getting involved.”

“Me neither,” Fitz adds, dancing her way over to the bookshelf with her entire rear end wagging. Baoth swoops down with almost obscene haste as the gangly dog reaches it, landing on her ruff and clicking his beak affectionately.

There’s a puff of breath on her ear as Tony leans close. “Should we be worried about how much our dæmons cling to each other?” he asks, his voice suddenly husky, and she suspects his brain has bailed to his pants. The flick of a tongue on the shell of her ear two seconds later and a gentle hand settling on her hip confirms it.

“If you ever refer to me or my dæmon as clingy again,” she states dryly, leaning back against him, “I’ll tell Gibbs about the Mighty Mouse tattoo on your ass.”

“I don’t have a Mighty Mouse tattoo on my ass.”

She smirks. “Yeah, but unless you’re willing to drop your pants in front of him, who do you think he’ll believe?” She reaches down and twines her fingers through the rope in his hand, sliding it easily out of his grip. When she holds it up, it catches the light from the lamp and shimmers unevenly along its length.

Then, she walks to the bedroom.

He’s frozen behind her, and when she turns he looks uneasy. Something strange twists in her belly at that expression and the watchful eyes of the two dæmons. “Really?” he asks finally, tilting his head. She realizes that, probably for the first time, his face is completely open to her. Nervousness. Anticipation.

Fear.

“Why not?” she suggests, digging in a little even though she’s pretty sure she doesn’t want the answer.

The silence is deafening.

“I don’t get tied up,” he says finally, following her and smiling shakily. It doesn’t reach his eyes, and she knows he’s dead serious right now. “Not ever. Okay? I don’t… I just don’t.”

She hands him the rope. “Okay.” She doesn’t pry further. They all have their limits.

Even him.

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t often they were on the wrong side of a solved case. It wasn’t a comfortable side for any cop to know. The side that didn’t get to switch off and go home; the side that put the killer away and served justice and then moved on with their lives. This time, they were on the side that, even though the case was over, was still haunted by it. An empty desk, a gun and badge that would never know their bearer’s touch again, a coffin carried by six, and the sound of Taps in the still morning air.

Pacci’s dead and, even though they’ve solved it, it doesn’t make it any better.

Tony picks up a carton of beer after the funeral and, still wearing the clothes he’d worn while watching them bury a fellow agent, goes to Kate’s. He intends to forget and there are worse ways to forget than in the embrace of a beautiful woman. She opens the door and she looks tired, grieved. He imagines he looks worse. Hey, she barely even knew Chris. Not like Tony did. Not like Gibbs. Not like his wife and children, barely holding themselves together.

Fitz slinks past and her tail is between her legs. She doesn’t deal well with losing people. She knows that everyone leaves, but that doesn’t make it hurt less when they do.

Kate looks him up and down and shakes her head. She’s not going to let him in. His heart takes a tumble into his shoes and his throat burns. He can’t. He can’t handle this, this rejection, not today. Not when he’s already raw.

“You’re already drunk, aren’t you?” she asks, and she’s disgusted in him. He’s not, not really, but he’s had one and his breath reeks of it. She’s smelled that and seen the sway of his body and the red around his eyes, and she’s assumed. Quality assumption really since, after all, when does Anthony DiNozzo let people see him hurting? Gibbs would be furious with her, jumping to conclusions without sufficient evidence.

“Get in the car,” she says, still talking, taking the beer from him. He follows her without a word and slumps into the passenger seat. Fitz slinks into the back and curls as small as she can get, Baoth tucked against her belly. At least Kate’s dæmon hasn’t rejected him, or her. He doesn’t think they could face that. They drive and say nothing. Tony thinks he might be sulking, but he can still smell the rich earth of the graveyard and hear that tune, and maybe he’s not so much grieving as he is coming to terms with the fact that it could have been any one of them in that hole. Might be any one of them, one day.

Even Gibbs. Even Kate. Maybe even McGee, if Tony fucks up completely and fails to protect him.

He presses his face to the cool glass and feels sick. Fitz whines. She’s still wearing the stupid fucking black cape bullshit they put on dæmons to show respect to the deceased. It’s too small on her, falling short of her shoulder blades, and it sticks out awkwardly. Not like Kali’s. Kali had worn hers with dignity, the fabric settling easily on her shoulders and chest. On her, it had looked distinguished.

She’s better at grieving than Fitz is, even though Tony’s pretty sure he’s had more practise. Who had Gibbs lost that his dæmon has gotten so good at looking mournful? No one that Tony can think of.

The silence continues, and he’s lost in his own head.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs opens the door. Kate is standing there looking oddly lopsided without Baoth on her shoulder. Tony is behind her, and Gibbs inwardly groans when he sees the hunched way his second in command is standing. He doesn’t usually stand like that with that face unless it’s his birthday, and they’ve already had that battle this year.

“What are you doing here?” Gibbs asks gruffly. Kali slips out from between his legs and moves over to Fitz, pressing her head against her chest affectionately. It’s then that Gibbs spots Baoth, perched on Fitz like he belongs there, like they belong together.

It would hurt more, but right now all he feels is numb.

Kate shoves a carton of beer at him and he barely catches it. “We’re remembering,” she replies curtly with a flick of her hair. “Pacci deserves that.” Tony’s head lifts and he looks surprised. Then he smiles. He’s looking at Kate, and Gibbs sees the exact moment his smile changes and becomes real. Gibbs isn’t sure he’s ever seen Tony look at anyone like that, except maybe Fitz.

While he wasn’t paying attention, something had started between them.

Somehow, seeing that smile and how it lit up his friend’s face, he can’t even bring himself to regret that.

 

* * *

 

Fitz feels it first, and Tony would have been angry anyway that someone had managed to dope him, but when he sees her back legs slip out from under her and her muzzle hit the gravel with a painful crunch, he’s livid.

“Oh, fuck,” he hisses, right before the world spins around him and it becomes his turn to stagger. Things become very simple after that.

Cell.

Speed-dial.

_Gibbs._

“I fucked up, boss,” he says to the ringing on the other end, not entirely sure if anyone has answered, and then he falls. He lands on Fitz. She’s soft and warm. The last thing he thinks is that if anyone touches her, he’ll kill them.

She whines.

 

* * *

 

If Kate had ever wondered how Tony had felt the day that she’d been taken hostage in autopsy, she doesn’t wonder anymore. She imagines it would have felt very much like this: getting out of the truck and walking slowly over to the enclosed carpark with her head buzzing and chest tightening uncomfortably around her lungs. The same swooping, half-butterflies-half-nausea clamouring in her gut. The same sweaty palm resting on the butt of her holstered weapon.

She knows she looks completely calm and impassive except for Baoth who wheels overhead and calls for someone who isn’t going to answer. His shrieks make her ears ring and she wants to tell him to stop, but her mouth is too dry to form words.

_Kee, kee, kee-ya._

She can hear the unspoken words in those calls, hears what he’s not saying because it would show too much.

_Fitz, Fitz, Fitz._

They find Tony’s car, his keys and cell abandoned on the ground next to it.

They don’t find Tony.

Now, she knows exactly how he felt. She hopes she’s going to have the chance to tease him about that.


	6. Missing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gibbs remembers being nearby a detonating IED. He remembers the blow of the pressure wave, like a single blast of wind of hurricane force throwing dirt and shrapnel against the windscreen of his own vehicle, its passage seeming to suck the air out of the truck.  He remembers the sudden dust hiding the vehicle two cars ahead until it lifted above the cloud and hovered in the air while his brain tried to process what was happening. He remembers watching it fall again, so very slowly, and hearing the screams of men and dæmons alike as they died. Most of all, he remembers with perfect clarity the cold rush of fear mixed with adrenaline that the explosion had caused, bringing with it the firm truth that nothing would ever be the same again. He’d felt it once more when they’d called him to tell him that the worst had happened and that, even when he went back stateside, he’d never be able to find his home again because they were both dead and buried.

This time, it was another phone call that had caused that feeling, but the shattering sensation of the world ending hadn’t followed. Not yet.

Not at all, if he had anything to do with it.

“I fucked up, boss,” Tony had slurred, before saying nothing at all, and Gibbs had broken every speed limit in getting there.

And he still hadn’t made it.

“Do you think he’s…?” Kate asks, before trailing off and paling with the sick fear that Gibbs knows all too well. Baoth wheels overhead, screeching, and that’s the only sign of how shaken she is after she collects herself ten seconds later and does her job calmly. McGee follows her lead, steady and dependable even though he’s green. If anyone is going to bring Tony home, it’s his team. He knows they can do it.

“He’s alive,” Kali says, closing her eyes and scenting the air. “We’d know if he wasn’t. _I’d_ know if he wasn’t.”

“I’m going to hold you to that,” he replies, crouching and resting his hand on her head, a single moment of comfort between them. Then he stands, and they get to work.

He’s going to kick DiNozzo’s ass for scaring them like this.

 

* * *

 

Tony wakes up. While he was asleep, someone had reached into his chest and ripped away his heart.

He screams. He screams, and he can’t hear her, she’s too far away, but he knows she’s screaming too. He screams until his lungs ache and his throat is raw. It doesn’t help because she’s still not there; she said she’d never leave him but she has, and he can’t _think_. 

Fitz isn’t there and he’s been torn in two and surely this will kill him.

 

* * *

 

“You’re scared.” McGee and Chitta are watching her, their eyes following her hand as she scratches out the number on the contact list she’s slowly working down. “You’re worried about him.”

“No, I’m not,” she lies, digging the pen in hard enough that it tears the thin paper. “He’s fine. You know Tony. He’s untouchable.”

Baoth flicks his wings. “Besides, Fitz won’t let anything happen to him,” he adds sternly. “I’d never let anything happen to Kate, and she’s no different.”

It’s Chitta who answers, and Kate realizes that she’s never heard the dæmon’s voice before now.

It’s soft, gentle, and, above all, male.

“Perhaps,” he says, crawling slowly down McGee’s arm with his long tail still looped around his neck. “But she is only one dæmon, and sometimes all the heart in the world can’t stop bad things from happening.”

Kate wonders what had happened to them to make Chitta so wary at the same time she wonders why McGee had never corrected them about the sex of his dæmon.

She has answers for neither.

 

* * *

 

At some point, he’d passed out. When he wakes up again, there’s a warm hand on his head and someone is leaning over him. That someone looks like he feels; like they’re both dancing on death’s doorstep with ‘kick me’ signs stapled to their foreheads.

“Welcome to hell,” Atlas says, and shudders, his eyes red-rimmed and leaking.

Tony wants to ask how he got here, he wants to console him, to find out what he knows. But he can’t do any of this because everything in him is being dragged apart, and he can’t think for the lack of her. “Fitz,” he moans, sinking his chin to his chest and trying to gather himself together, almost unconsciously dropping his hand to the side she favours, expecting to find velvet ears and soft fur. It’s always been there before, it’s impossible that it’s not now. _Impossible._

“They took my Jeo too,” Atlas murmurs, shuddering again, his vision turning glazed. “Christ, it hurts so fucking much. It feels like months since I had her, I’m dying. This is dying.”

If Tony focuses, he can feel her on the edge of his consciousness. He can feel fear and pain and an agonised desperation he mirrors. He clings to that, because so long as they’re alive and he can feel her, he’ll find her again.

They’re chained. Simple fix. They’re also locked in a room that stinks to high heaven and is very likely, judging by that smell, in a sewer. Not so easy.

“Rule nine,” he mutters feverishly to himself, undoing his belt to release the knife hidden in the buckle. Atlas makes a querying noise, but he’s too far out of it to answer. He needs to keep focusing on keeping his heart beating, his head together.

_Fitz, Fitz, Fitz, Fitz._

He thinks of Gibbs and Kali, and his head clears a little. Gibbs will find him. Gibbs and his dæmon, together, they’ll find them both. He knows they will.

Not for a single moment does he believe otherwise.

 

* * *

 

Ducky has the autopsy report spread out in front of him, and Netta is sitting so close to his chair that, if he slips off, he’s going to have spines in a nasty place. Gibbs considers pointing that out, but one look at Ducky’s face suggests he probably shouldn’t. Kali sidles closer, pressing against his leg, a nervous rumble in her throat. They’re not gonna like whatever Ducky has to say, they can tell already.

“I reviewed Corporal Cohen’s autopsy from two thousand two. Ah, Gibbs, you need to stay calm. Just because…”

“Ducky,” he snaps, and he feels Kate tense. McGee is silent behind them both, waiting.

“There’s a large amount of damage to his heart,” Ducky says, looking down at the file. “Cause of death, systematic organ failure on a high level beginning with a myocardial infarction. His heart was otherwise healthy, this kind of complete body shut down is only ever seen in those who have been…”

“Severed from their dæmons,” Gibbs finishes, going cold. Kali snarls, loud and fierce, a fox snarl, and everyone in the room stares at her in shock. “He’s severing them.”

“For extended periods. By the looks of it, and the muscle and tissue loss accompanying it, our victims are being locked as far away from their dæmons as they can stand without dying, and then left to… well.” Ducky’s hand reached down for his dæmon, fingers trembling. “A truly horrific way to die, Jethro.”

“That’s the first good news I’ve heard all day,” Gibbs says, ignoring their shared looks of confusion. “It means there’s a good chance they’re all still alive.”

“Fitz is probably glad of the break from Tony,” Kate jokes weakly, but she looks sick at the idea of it and Baoth’s beak hangs open in fear.

Gibbs is going to _destroy_ the man who’s done this to them.

 

* * *

 

Tony tries to open the door and, to keep their minds off the holes in their souls, Atlas rambles on about why they’re there. “We tried to smuggle them home in shipping containers,” he admits, pressing against the wall in the direction they can feel their dæmons. “If that wasn’t enough… god, we fucked up so bad. One of the girls, she had the biggest dæmon I’ve ever seen. A stag, beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. She was so proud of him. He couldn’t fit in the container with them, and she was terrified of being alone, so we found two containers being shipped together and put him in there. The girl didn’t want him to be alone either, so most of the other girls’ dæmons agreed to travel with him.”

Tony’s stomach twisted and threatened to send his lunch onto his shoes. He already knew where this was going. The buckle slipped again, failing to find purchase.

“We thought… we checked the logs, they were going to be moved together. They’d never be far apart, and we thought we could get there and unlock the containers and let them out before they unloaded the ships. We thought it was fool-proof. Jesus, we should have killed them outright. Lieutenant Sacco changed our orders at the last minute.  He split us up and put us all on different ships. We all assumed that one of us was on the one with the girls.”

Tony can’t move for the nausea roiling in his guts, bile burning his throat. He can’t imagine, can’t even _begin_ to imagine what that was… oh god.

“Her dæmon died but she survived. She lost her fucking dæmon and, somehow, she didn’t die. I can’t… she’s insane, you know. She’s completely insane and I don’t even blame her. She wears an insect capsule on her belt so people don’t realize what she’s lost, but most of them can tell. It’s her _eyes_.”

Tony thinks for a split second of feeling Fitz moving further away from him, never coming back, his soul tearing with every inch between them, and gives up fighting his stomach. He buckles and retches until his mouth burns too and the whole room stinks of vomit.

“Yeah, I did that a lot as well when I realized,” Atlas says quietly, sagging to the floor. “I deserve this. But Jeo doesn’t. She doesn’t deserve me, she’s so much better than I could ever be.”

“Don’t you quit on me,” Tony warns him once he can breathe again without gagging. “Marines don’t quit, gunny.”

“I need to tell her how sorry I am,” Atlas says, closing his eyes, his breathing slowing, and Tony doesn’t know if he’s talking about his dæmon or the girl. At this point, it doesn’t even matter.

The buckle catches and the door slides open.

 

* * *

 

They hear her before they find him.

“Oh my god,” Kate gasps, and Gibbs’ face turns into a cold mask of fury.

“Fitz,” Kali breathes, and she’s gone, racing ahead with Gibbs almost slipping in his haste to follow her. “Fitz!” There’s a desperation to the dæmon’s voice that Kate knows her human would never in a million years let show. As Baoth leaps from her shoulder and swoops after them, time seems to slow. They’re not moving quickly enough, Fitz’ screaming barks are freezing the blood in Kate’s veins, and she never wants to hears anything with as much pain in its voice ever again.

They find a barred door that Gibbs heaves open with a single shove. Fitz explodes out of the room, followed by something small and dark and fast. Kate catches a glimpse of bloodied paws, a gashed muzzle, and wild brown eyes with the whites showing, before the dæmons are racing off down the dark passageway.

There’s a gunshot and Fitz is out of sight. Kali barks harshly.

Then, they’re running again and time slips away.

 

* * *

 

A gunshot deafens him, and Sacco falls. Tony watches him topple slowly into the water as his ears ring painfully. He can feel Fitz getting closer with every moment, easing the pain, like a rubber band that had been stretched far too thin and then released before it could snap. Vanessa is talking to him but he can’t hear her beyond the ringing and he better not be fucking deaf, because if he is work is going to get _really_ awkward.

Then, she’s pointing a gun at him, and he doesn’t need his hearing to know everything is going to shit. He looks at her eyes instead, and he can see what Atlas was talking about there. There’s a loss in those eyes, an emptiness, one that Tony can’t even begin to understand.

Fortunately, Fitz has never let him down, and she doesn’t start now.

She hurtles out from the darkness, a snarling flurry of white fangs and bristling fur, and the gun goes off again, the bullet impacting harmlessly into the wall to Tony’s left. A dark shape bounds over the top of the struggling dog and woman, a hare that leaps into Atlas’ arms with a sob.

“I thought we would die,” she gasps, and he hugs her close.

Kate and Gibbs appear, of course they do. He’s not even surprised that they found him. He knew they would. He doesn’t have time to thank them though, because Fitz is up and in his arms and she’s warm and alive and licking his face. He thinks he might be crying, maybe just a little, but he doesn’t even fucking care.

“Don’t leave me again,” he hisses into her fur, and she whines with happiness and relief and something else he doesn’t quite understand. A warm weight against his other side, and he looks down into Kali’s soft eyes, not surprised by the uncharacteristic show of affection.

“Don’t you leave us again either,” she says quietly. It’s the closest Gibbs will ever get to admitting how scared he was, and Tony is absolutely okay with that.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs finds him sitting on the edge of the ambulance, looking cranky. Fitz is practically on his lap, paws splayed on his legs and head resting on his chest, her eyes on his face, and it makes Gibbs’ heart beat strangely to see the love and fear that’s yet to recede from her expression. All of his anger at Vanessa had faded as soon as he’d cuffed her and she’d reached for Kali with a yearning moan, desperately seeking the half of her she’d lost. Kali had dodged back out of reach, but her ears had folded back and her tail had drooped sadly.

Gibbs knew exactly what it was like to lose what you thought you couldn’t live without.

“Don’t fight the medics, DiNozzo,” he scolds, seeing the paramedic shoot him a thankful glance. “They’re trying to help.”

“Oh yeah,” Tony says sarcastically, “like you’d be sitting here all nice and placid if it was you.”

“Wouldn’t be me,” Gibbs says, his voice firm, standing as close to him as he can without it looking odd. Kali sits closer, her shoulder brushing Fitz’s, and her paw dangerously close to Tony’s foot. Tempting fate. “I wouldn’t have drunk on the job in the first place.” Tony grins sheepishly. Gibbs memorizes that grin, in case this happens again. When it happens again. He’s under no illusions that Tony isn’t going to gleefully fling himself straight back into danger as soon as he’s next given the chance. The thought isn’t comforting. He tries to head it off. “Don’t do it again,” he says grumpily, reaching out to brush a smear of muck off his subordinate’s shoulder. His fingers linger on the rough material for a moment, feeling the comforting continued beat of his heart under his fingertips.

“Don’t intend upon it, boss,” Tony answers in a low voice, leaning ever so slightly into his touch.

 

* * *

 

“Really, Tony? You don’t want to spend one night in your own bed after being abducted?” She’s not really as shocked as her voice suggests to find him standing there, thankfully, showered. And she’s not actually going to turn him away. Not tonight. Probably not ever, not after the fright he’d given them all. Both of them.

He shrugs nonchalantly, and there’s something unfamiliar in his expression. “I don’t… actually, I brought movies. And Chinese. If um… if you’d like to watch something, perhaps.”

She reads between the lines and sees what he’s not saying. _I’m not here for sex._ It’s dangerously close to romantic, and neither of them do commitment.

She wants it more than she’ll ever admit. “Okay,” she says quietly, standing aside and letting him in. “DVD player in the living room.” He catches her arm and pulls her in for a kiss. For once Fitz doesn’t race for Baoth. She presses her head against Kate’s hip, her muzzle resting on the palm of Kate’s hand, and she’s softer and silkier than Kate ever imagined she would be.

She begins to think that maybe she’s in way over her head.


	7. Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s rattled, shaken, impossibly off-kilter. Yes, that’s right, Anthony DiNozzo Jr, _the_ Anthony DiNozzo isn’t coping. Who’d have thought it possible?

Gibbs would. Gibbs has patched him together so many times by this point that Tony is pretty sure he’s more boat than man. And yet, tonight, with the feeling of Fitz being torn away from him still cutting at his core, he can’t go to Gibbs. He doesn’t know why. Maybe it was the fierceness in Gibbs’ glare when he’d emerged from that tunnel five steps behind Fitz and ready to burn the world to reach him. Maybe it was the fear in his face at the ambulance, the split-second flicker when he’d looked at Tony and considered how close they’d all come to Tony entertaining Ducky one last time.

He goes to Kate instead, and it’s stupid, reckless, because he’s beyond being cautious with his heart at this point and Fitz is still shaking under her silly posturing, her desperate need for touch resonating off her. He feels it too, longing for something, anything, to tie him to his body and his soul and remind him he’s still whole.

Just for tonight, he wants to let himself be alive.

Just for tonight.

 

* * *

 

At some point during the night, she finds a bottle of wine and three quarters of a bottle of scotch in her cupboard and they share them both out. Tony complains the whole time, sprawled out on the rough bed they’ve made of couch cushions shoved together on the living room floor, balancing his glass against Fitz’s soft back as she dozes next to him.

Kate lays against him, barely paying attention to the movie as it drones on in the background, instead focusing on the lilt of Tony’s sleepy voice as he attempts to quote along with the actors on the screen. He jokes and whines as usual, but his hands shake on the glass and there’s a desperate fear to his tone that suggests that, on the inside, he’s quietly shattering.

At some point during the night, the warm buzz of the alcohol is replaced by the warmth of his arms, and they find solace from the fear of his abduction in each other, the blue light of the TV casting eerie light over their sweaty skin as they move together. They’re slightly drunk, more than slightly tired, and the whole thing has a hazy kind of unrealism to it that drags Kate in as she looks into his heavily lidded eyes and thinks that maybe she’s falling asleep. Slowly and steadily drawn in; so slow she barely even notices, until suddenly it happens all at once.

She thinks, maybe, she could also be falling in love.

They fell asleep in a tangle of limbs and couch cushions, and everything feels fine.

 

* * *

 

She’s _obnoxious._

Tony knows obnoxious. It’s hard to believe, but he’s been accused of suffering from that trait more than a few times. He knows obnoxious from the tone of voice to the smirking kind of smile on the corner of her pretty mouth. And dammit, he knows she’s doing it on purpose, but it still ticks him the fuck off.

“You break them in half, Tony,” she says, with that half smirking-half cocky-ass grin she knows drives him mad, and he crosses his arms and glares at her from across the room. He wants to shake her. He wants to shout. He would shout, except it’s three in the morning and they’re still half drunk and making pasta naked in her dim kitchen and it doesn’t feel appropriate to raise his voice. He wants to walk over there, to where she’s sitting on the chair with a towel bunched up under her to save the chair and her finger absently tracing around the rim of a scotch glass; he wants to kiss her until her eyes soften even just a little and the cockiness makes way for the cautious kind of softness that broke him just a little more every time he heard it.

“Kate,” he says instead, and hears Fitz groan. “I’m Italian. You don’t break spaghetti in half when you boil it. No one does that. No one.”

“I do that,” she retorts, tilting her head back a little, and he slams the empty pot down.

“No one does that!” Now he’s shouting. Now he’s shouting over goddamn spaghetti, and she’s still smirking, and, dammit, she’s going to win this one.

“Why are you guys fighting over this?” Fitz wails from under the table. “It’s a non-issue!”

“It’s a non-issue when Tony admits he’s wrong!” Baoth shouts from his perch on the fridge.

Fitz goes still. “But he’s not,” she grumbles, putting her paws on her muzzle and covering her eyes in disgust at being roped in. “He’s really, really not. Who does that?”

The two dæmons begin squabbling and Kate smiles at them. Tony looks at her. He doesn’t intend on falling in love but, in that moment, he can see how it would be easy.

 

* * *

 

Abby drinks with a single-minded tenacity that Kate, even having grown up with three brothers, admires greatly. She has absolutely no doubt that the woman could drink DiNozzo under the table and an almost perverse desire to see her do it.

“So,” Abby declares, slamming her glass on the table and narrowing her eyes at Kate. Mort is sprawled across the bar stool next to her, tracing patterns in the condensation of his own glass with his tail. “When were you going to tell me about you and Tony?”

Kate stills, her eyes locked on a couple across the bar from them. Young, unmarried, the woman much, much, much more invested in the relationship than the man is, judging by the way his eyes are tracking the barmaid’s ass around the room. She looks away before she starts seeing herself in the woman’s eyes.

“I thought you knew,” she says honestly, watching Mort so she doesn’t have to face those accusing tea-green eyes. “Everyone else does.”

“Everyone being Gibbs the functional mute, the eternal kid-with-his-hand-in-the-cookie-jar Tony, and McGee. McGee, who is so scared of your wrath that every time I mention you, he twitches and looks behind him just in case you’re lurking behind the curtains.” She reaches over and tugs the bowl of pistachios over to her, jabbing them curiously with a pen and wrinkling her nose. “Which one of them did you think was going to tell me?”

She has a point. Kate finds herself watching the couple again, the woman’s face falling as the man makes a sly comment to the flushing barmaid. Her dæmon, a tabby cat with a dark M marking across his flat skull, bristles on the bar-top, his ears flattening. “Sorry, Abby. It just… happened. I didn’t really tell anyone.”

Abby looks around, following her gaze and settling it on the couple. “What are you doing, Kate?” she asks quietly, none of her usual lightness to her voice.

“I don’t know,” Kate responds. The woman stands and walks out, her dæmon trotting after her with his tail held high and waving angrily. The man doesn’t seem to notice, but his spaniel dæmon turns to watch them go with his ears low and worried. “God, Abby. I have no idea.”

 

* * *

 

Gibbs walks into autopsy and promptly almost trips over the skinny hindquarters of what he at first mistakes for a deer. Or maybe some kind of small horse. A second glance as he backpedals away from the gawky animal tells him that it’s actually some kind of dog. It’s all long legs, giant paws that it hasn’t grown into and a whip-like tail at just the right height to endanger everything on the surrounding tabletops. Her narrow muzzle is framed by floppy ears and coated with gleaming silver-blue silky fur. It’s both the most awkward dæmon he’s ever seen, and one of the prettiest.

Its owner straightens and peers at him from behind thick lenses, eyes magnified to a ridiculous amount and mouth turned up in a nervous expression that Gibbs suspects is a permanent part of his face. “Hello, hi, I’m Jim—Palmer. Ah, Mr. Palmer… James. I’m James.” He coughs and runs a shaking hand through his curly hair, and his dæmon slips over again on the tiled floor and huffs. “My friends call me Jimmy. Not that… I mean, you don’t have to call me Jimmy.”

Gibbs cuts him off. “Ducky?”

Wide eyes blink, confused. “No, I’m Jimmy.” Gibbs growls in his throat. Both ‘Jimmy’ and his dæmon make identical whimpers of fear. “Oh, you mean… Dr. Mallard? He’s um…”

“Right here, Jethro.” Gibbs turns as his friend bustles out of the adjourning room, juggling an armful of books. “I see you’ve met my new assistant, Mr. Palmer. He’s replacing Gerald.” Looking back at the assistant, Gibbs is met by a wide-toothed grin that doesn’t manage to mask the raw terror in the man’s eyes. His dæmon does the same, looking from Kali to Gibbs with her tail wagging furiously and sending a jar of pencils clattering across the room.

“Oh shi—sugar. Echo! Your tail!” The man scampers to save the pencils, his dæmon lolling her tongue out of the side of her mouth in a pleading supplication.

_Tony’s going to have a field day with you_ , Gibbs thinks, shifting his mouth into a tight smile of welcome.

 

* * *

 

If he had to make a list of ‘best things that have happened to me’, Jimmy Palmer beginning would have to be near the top. Somewhere below _Die Hard_ , but certainly above the hot new barista at the coffee shop Gibbs constantly sent him to. And Fitz was just having a field day with the man’s Weimaraner dæmon, despite the fact that the two dogs stood eye to eye in height.

“He’s so easy to terrify,” he’s telling Kate gleefully, ignoring her glazed eyes and firm ‘I don’t care why are you still talking’ expression. “It’s like having McGee, but around _all the time._ It’s fantastic!”

“Uh huh, that’s nice,” she says non-committedly, staring at a point just off centre of his stomach. He’s standing next to her, looming as she sits at her desk in a way that she normally hates, but today she doesn’t even twitch. It’s been almost three weeks since his little sewer adventure and, ever since that night, she’s been distant. A bite of nervousness starts building in the back of his mind. To displace it, he decides to piss her off. An angry Kate is a million times better than this vacant backing-the-fuck-off Kate. He leans over and flicks her on the chin, whistling loudly. “Hello, Earth to Kate. Incoming message for Kate via DiNozzo.”

At the sound of his whistle, her eyes flicker angrily, and her gaze snaps onto him. “Did you just whistle at me?” she growls, expression turning dangerous. He automatically drops his hands, spreading them open in a ‘please don’t hurt me’ posture in front of his lower belly. All the safer to avoid the dreaded nut-shot he’s sure she’s planning. Fitz bolts back to his desk, the tips of her ears just visible above his keyboard as she hunkers down.

She’s always been way smarter than he is.

“Yes,” he says, smirking. “Yes, I did. And you responded, which would imply that it was absolutely the correct thing to do, _Kaaate._ ”

“You’re on thin ice, DiNozzo,” Gibbs says from behind him, looking up from his paperwork. “Get back to your desk before I fire you just to get you to shut the hell up.”

“Understood, boss,” Tony says quickly, saluting and turning on his heel to speed-walk quickly back to his post. Kate mutters something that sounds very much like ‘childish’ or possibly ‘pig’ and Tony feels the ice under his feet cracking ominously. He gets the feeling he’s about to lose something he hasn’t yet had the chance to take for granted.

 

* * *

 

Fitz bounds up to her car with a flower dangling from her mouth, play bowing with her plumy tail waving like a flag of surrender. Keys rattle against the lock as Kate tries to hold back a tired chuckle at the dæmon’s antics.

“Where did you steal that from?” she asks DiNozzo when he sidles out from behind the next car, smiling. The end of the flower is ragged, clearly filched from some poor garden nearby.

“Is this the face of a thief?” he says innocently, gesturing to Fitz. He steps forward, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her in, brushing his lips against hers. It’s a ridiculous, romantic gesture, and her heart hammers in her chest, spreading a warm buzz of something sappy through her belly.

A glance over his shoulder shows the file clerk from one floor down looking over at them curiously and the warm rush of affection pooling in Kate’s stomach vaporises to be replaced with a cold jolt of realization. “Shit, Tony,” she snaps, pushing him away, her mouth dry. “We’re in the parking lot, for crying out loud.”

His face flickers, the barest hint of a temper, and she swallows back regret at her sharp reaction. Exhaustion claws at her, making her anger quick to burn and slow to fade, and she knows she’s been cruel for no good reason over the past few days. She doesn’t know how to explain that to him, so she just lowers her gaze and looks at his shoes.

“Come over tonight?” she offers weakly, an attempt at reconciliation.

“I’m busy,” he says, his voice low and hurt, and walks away. She thinks of chasing him, but there’s an ache in her stomach that screams for her to get in the car and curl her hands around it protectively and she’s so tired she can’t even think straight.

Dammit.

 

* * *

 

This crime scene isn’t anything out of the ordinary. Positively mundane, after some of the things they’ve seen. Stabbing in a marine’s home. The man lies in a pool of his own dry blood on the floor, long dead, and Gibbs holds back his fury at a hero discarded so thoughtlessly.

The house smells of the beginnings of rot; Kate takes two steps in, turns a sickly shade of green, and bolts from the room. Gibbs’s gut clenches warningly. “Stay,” he grunts at Tony, and follows her out. If she’s been hiding flu, he’ll have her ass on a desk before lunch. He finds Kate losing her lunch in the bushes, the retching sounds painfully forced. He finds himself thinking of Shannon before Kelly, feeling his gut clench again. He holds out a bottle of water when she emerges, pushing the image away. 

She sips the water, swishes it, and spits it out, muttering, “Thanks.” She’s lost weight, he notes. The skin around her eyes is tight, pinched. Baoth flaps his wings from the tree nearby, _keeing_ nervously.

“Go see Ducky,” he says bluntly, examining the shadows under her eyes, the green tinge of her skin darkening them. Her mouth thins into an angry line, about to argue. He doesn’t give her the chance. “Don’t need you contaminating a crime scene, Todd. Go.”

A long beat of silence before she nods and leaves without a word, her dæmon following.

 

* * *

 

Ducky looks troubled. He’s not telling one of his long rambling stories. He’s sent Palmer away.

Well, shit, _fuck_. This isn’t going to be good at all.

“Caitlin,” he begins, his throat working as he swallows hard. “Ah. Well. You seem perfectly hearty.”

“Aside from the vomiting,” she comments wryly. His mouth works busily for a moment, before nodding in one sharp movement.

“Yes. Aside from the nausea. And the weight loss. You say you have other symptoms, beginning around the same time?” A sudden niggling thought leaps into her mind and promptly takes up all the space in the room, and she almost slides off the autopsy table in shock.

Oh, _shit._ No. No no no, not possible. Not now. Not yet. Not with _Tony_.

Judging by the way Ducky’s eyes widen, he’s seen her expression shift to horror. “Yes. Apparently, it has occurred to you as well. Perhaps you should, ah… acquire a test.”

“Not possible,” she murmurs, and Baoth is a frozen shape on her shoulder, his talons digging into her flesh.

“Well, actually, it’s entirely possible,” Ducky says, his cheer returning. “Of course, you are of optimal child-bearing age, with no fertility issues and, obviously, a male companion, and we all know how fallible contraceptives can be. Why, when I was in my forties, I had a friend who managed to somehow impregnate his lady friend despite, by my count, using no less than four different—”

Her ears had stopped paying attention right about the point he’d mentioned male companion and she’d had a very vivid memory of the night after Tony’s abduction, the alcohol, and the complete lack of care they’d taken.

Shit.

“She’s going to be sick,” Baoth announces. Ducky holds a bowl in front of her with a swiftness that suggests he was a nurse in a past life, without missing a beat in his story.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” she manages to choke out between gagging.

A warm hand pats her back, tucking her hair out of her eyes. “My dear,” he says quietly, “my lips are, of course, sealed.”

 

* * *

 

Tony is acting the clown again, pantomiming some movie scene for the entranced Abby and bemused Tim. Kate watches from her desk, her heart in her throat, and hopes to god none of them can tell how much she’s freaking out. He’s a child. He’s a massive, overgrown child with abandonment issues so big even Gibbs wouldn’t be able to get them out of his basement, and he’s the last person she’d have chosen to raise a child, her child, with.

Except, that’s not entirely true.

She thinks of him as a dad and it’s all too easy to imagine his wide grin aimed at a smaller version of him and her. It’s all too easy to see him coming home to his child, lifting it in his arms; all too easy to see how he would make that child his entire world.

He’d be a fantastic father.

A much better father than she would be a mother, of that she has no fucking doubt.

And she doesn’t love him, not in the married with a white-picket-fence-raising-five-kids kinda way, but when she thinks of him with a son or a daughter, her heart aches. She loves him as a friend and maybe a little more, and the happiness that that could bring him takes her breath away. She looks down at her stomach and the potential for happiness that’s growing there and considers that maybe this isn’t just her choice after all.

She doesn’t love him, but she could.

They could do this.

 

* * *

 

He goes to her home and is making dinner when she comes out of the bathroom and faces him, looking so painfully scared and vulnerable that his hand drops immediately to his hip, reaching for a gun that isn’t there.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” he says instantly, switching to agent mode and peering around her. Fitz stills, frozen in a hunting position, waiting to launch herself at whoever made Kate look so un-Kateish.

She holds her hand out and it takes two glances to register what she’s holding.

His world comes crashing to a halt.

“I’m pregnant,” she says weakly, trying to smile and failing.

Over the next few days, the ghost of a former voice would haunt him without pause, getting louder every time she stands at her desk and his gaze catches her abdomen.

_Alsatians are dependable. You’re anything but._

He wants this, but he’s no idiot. He knows how to put together the evidence and come up with a logical conclusion. We repeat the sins of our fathers after all, and Kate deserves better.

He wants this, but he can’t.


	8. Choices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You know, there was a time you’d have come to me to do this.”

The liquid burns on the way down Tony’s throat and it’s a good burn, a choking burn, and he wants it to hurt, but a hand knocks it away. It splatters down his front, patterning his fucking shirt with stains that are going to be a bitch to wash. “Do you have any idea how much this shirt cost?” he slurs, scrubbing at the marks with the back of his hand.

“More than it’s worth,” Gibbs grunts. He’s trying to heave him up but the world is whirling, spinning, tipping. Tony clutches him and hears a yelp, Fitz, somewhere. He needs to piss. He needs to vomit.

Kate’s pregnant.

“I’m fucked,” he moans, and leans his head onto a firm surface that’s warm and stoic and persisting. There’s a long beat where it slowly dawns on him that he’s basically cuddling his boss, he’s about five breaths away from tears, and he really, really needs to piss. Like, unbelievably.

Then there’s an arm around his shoulder, pulling him close, and everything seems a little simpler. “We’ll be alright, Tony,” Gibbs says quietly, and Kali is twining around his leg in a loving figure eight, her ears low. “We’ll get through this.” Tony wonders if his boss even knows what’s going on. He wouldn’t put it past him.

“Will we?” he asks, and closes his eyes, because he has no delusions about his ability to parent a kid, any kid, and this time when he fucks up he’s taking a child down with him.

And he still needs to piss.

 

* * *

 

“So, the usual?” Abby asks as they walk into the bar, and Kate probably should have talked to her before she agreed to come with her.

“No…” Kate says, trailing off and looking at Baoth as though asking the dæmon for advice. He just tilts his head, clicking his beak, and flapping away up into the rafters. Dick. Why did all the men in her life insist upon leaving her to do the hard stuff alone? “I’m not drinking, Abs.”

And Abby smiles as though she understands before she sees Kate’s expression and her bright red mouth forms into a slightly off kilter O of shock.

“Oh my god, Kate,” she says.

Kate tries to head off the freak out she can sense coming, especially as they haven’t found a booth yet, people are looking at them, and she really doesn’t need a full-on Abby-meltdown at their favourite bar. “Abby, breathe,” she says, grabbing her friend’s arm and trying to drag her from the walkway.

“Oh my god, Kate,” Abby repeats.

“Sorry,” Kate says helplessly to a woman who glares and sidles around Abby crankily. “Abby! We can talk over here.”

“Oh my god, Kate,” says Abby one more time, and Kate’s pretty sure she’s stuck in a loop now. She gives up. A man with a bushy beard, multiple angry-looking tattoos and a bizarrely pretty Angora rabbit dæmon in his arms stops and raises a crooked eyebrow at them.

“Yes, yes, I’m pregnant,” she snaps, dropping Abby’s arm and crossing her own. “Stop making a scene!”

“Congratulations,” the biker says with a wide smile, leaning over Abby to smile down at Kate. “It’s always scary becoming a parent.” And then he wanders off, leaving Kate to smile weakly after him.

“Ooh my god, it’s Tony’s isn’t it?” Abby says, snapping back into the real world and rubbing her neck as though she’d just become aware that someone had been standing behind her. “Hey, do you think they make leather jackets in bunny size?”

Kate sighs.

Some things never really change, and she gets a feeling Abby is one of those things.

 

* * *

 

Since telling him that he’d successfully managed to knock her up, he’s stopping visiting. She’s not even fucking surprised, but she’d be lying if she said she isn’t disappointed.

**To: DiNozzo**

**We going to talk about this?**

Silence. Complete radio silence, and she’s so goddamn alone she can’t think.

“We’re okay, Kate,” Baoth soothes her, tucking his head against her palm and nibbling lovingly at the flesh between her thumb and finger. “We’re going to be okay.”

“I don’t know what to do,” she admits, curling her knees to her chest on her bedroom floor and trying not to fall apart.

And her phone stays silent.

 

* * *

 

She corners him in the bathroom and he’s almost glad, because he’s a fucking coward and Fitz is starting to get matted along her belly from slinking around like the whip’s about to strike. The instant Gibbs had walked in that morning and spotted Tony, red-eyed and borderline scruffy, and Fitz with her tail between her legs and slinking after him, his gaze had darkened. He hadn’t asked, not yet, but he would.

“The fuck do you think you’re doing?” she snarls, and Baoth has Fitz bailed up by the urinals, feathers fluffed out and hissing harshly. “I need you and where the fuck are you? Getting pissed, by the look of your eyes. Grow up, DiNozzo! You don’t get to do this anymore, okay?” She doesn’t wait for him to answer, just leaves, and it’s not like he deserves a chance to speak anyway. It’s not like he knows what to say if he did. _I don’t want you to have this kid. It’s not too late to… do something, is it? You can have this kid, but I don’t want anything to do with it._

The thought of the last one has his gut lurching and he spits bile into the urinal Fitz is cowering by. Not that one. He’ll never say that one. He’d rather be strung up by his balls than walk away from a flesh and blood kid that he put here on this earth.

But the thing is, the kid _isn’t_ flesh and blood, not yet, and he doesn’t know anymore.

“We’re not okay,” Fitz whines, her voice choked with the terror he’s hiding behind a frozen parody of a grin. “Tony, Tony, we’re not okay.” He ignores her and spends the day hunched at his desk flirting with every woman who comes within ten feet of him and, maybe if he fucks this up enough, the choice will be taken away from him.

He’d always known he was undependable, but this is the first time he’s been forced to realize he’s a coward as well.

 

* * *

 

He dials the number five times and hangs up before the line can connect.

“Why should we tell him?” Fitz asks, pacing the living room with her teeth bared and hackles forming a dark ridge down her spine. “So he can mess up another generation of DiNozzos?”

“He’s our dad,” Tony says quietly, and dials it again. Hangs up. Presses his face against the couch and swears at himself, at the couch, the world, and especially at drunk idiots without protection. “What, you think he’s not going to find out?”

“Since when has he cared?” she retorts, and snaps at a fly irritably. He waits and bit then dials the number again. This time he lets it connect.

He gets voicemail.

In the end, he doesn’t tell him. There’s nothing to tell him yet anyway.

 

* * *

 

“You look unhappy, Jethro.” Ducky narrows his eyes at him, no doubt seeing a thousand and one things on his face and posture that betray the sleepless nights and scarce meals he’s been enjoying lately.

Tony is flighty, scatterbrained; Kate is hiding something she’s terrified of; Ari is still a ghost.

Nothing seems to be going right, and Gibbs is exhausted.

“Long week?” Palmer suggests, crouched on the floor and scratching his dæmon’s flank. The dog lolls, tongue drooping stupidly out the side of her mouth, and Gibbs thinks of Fitz.

“Long year,” Gibbs grunts, pressing two knuckles into his eyes until red lights flash across his lids. Distantly, he can hear Palmer being shooed away by Ducky, the uneven click of his dæmon’s claws on the tiles fading.

When he starts paying attention again, Ducky is chattering away and he’s missed half the conversation. “… Anthony down here the other day and I told him, ‘you really must look after yourself!’ I should hate to think of the state of that young man’s pantry…”

“Spends most of his time at Todd’s anyway,” Gibbs comments bitterly, irritation sparking at the reminder of his subordinate’s indiscretions.

He looks up in the sudden silence and Ducky’s gone pale as though he’s been suddenly struck ill. There’s a sharp bite of cold fear that starts in Gibbs’ heart and ripples outwards, lifting his arm and stepping forward in case his friend topples over.

“Caitlin and Anthony are… involved?” Ducky asks slowly, and the fear changes and becomes colder and sharper all at once, an old suspicion rearing its head from where he’d tucked it away. “This isn’t a recent development, is it?”

Gibbs stares him down but Ducky has always been immune to his glares. “Months now. Why, Ducky? What aren’t you telling me?”

Netta rambles something under her breath, shaking her spines out and closing her eyes as though pained. “Perhaps I was hasty with dismissing Anthony’s concerns to his diet,” Ducky says finally, his mouth thinning into a worried line. “I think you should talk to him, Jethro. Now, more so than ever, he’s going to need you.”

There’s no point asking because, in all the time he’s known the man, Ducky’s never betrayed anyone’s trust, but he tries anyway. “Why, Duck? And you know he’s not gonna like me getting into his business. We don’t work like that.”

Ducky shrugs, and fiddles with the paperwork on his desk, expression distant. “He’ll come to you,” he says. “When he’s ready.”

 

* * *

 

She rings her parent’s home, not entirely sure what she’s going to say, but sure that she can’t do this alone anymore. She’s got Abby, but she’s really not close enough with her yet to drop this weight on her shoulders, and she’d die rather than ask Gibbs for help.

Her brother picks up. “Katie,” he greets her, his tone mulish, and she rolls her eyes. “Hey.”

“Still staying at home?” she asks, probably unfairly scathing, but it’s some comfort to know her life isn’t the only one going to shit. “Jesus, James. You have to get back up, you know.”

He’s quiet and she’s sorry for a moment. “Rhi wants an uncontested divorce,” he says finally, his tone heavy. “I’m just going to sign. She can have the lot.” Her problems seem smaller all of a sudden, and she misses when they were kids and she didn’t know her brother could possibly sound so broken. Two years between them, they’d always been closer than they had been with their older siblings.

“I’m sorry,” she says eventually, wrapping her finger with the landline cord and pulling it tight. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m probably going to distract Mom from fussing over you.”

A dark laugh echoes hollowly into her ear. “Why?” he says. “What did you do that’s going to invoke the wrath of the mother down upon you? And is it going to piss Rachel off too, because she won’t stop whining at me to go back to the academy?”

The words escape her before she can stop them, and Baoth is picking at the phone book with a tentative claw, watching her with one eye. “I’m pregnant.”

Silence.

“Well, shit, that’ll do it,” he says, and laughs again. “Fucking hell, Kate, I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone.”

“I’m not.”

The line crackles as his breath puffs against it, exhaled in a gust, and she can hear Ferox making a low _chup_ of concern against the earpiece on the other side. Baoth shrills a greeting and she holds the phone away from her ear as the hoarse _kak kak kak_ of her brother’s dæmon rattles back through. “Are you done?” she hears him grumble, the distinctive sound of large talons scraping across a table following, as though he’d shoved his gyrfalcon away irritably. “Stupid chicken. Kate, do you know what you’re going to… do?”

There’s an unspoken question there, and she doesn’t know how to answer. Her stomach cramps, almost angrily. “No.”

“Maybe you should wait,” he says finally. “Before you tell mom… at least until you have some idea. Hey, Kate? You know, no matter what you choose, you can talk to me, yeah?”

Maybe she’s not as alone as she’d thought. “I know. Thanks, James.”

There’s something to be said for family.

 

* * *

 

He’s fiddling with the radio in his basement, lost in his own thoughts, when Kali’s ears prick. Seconds later, he hears the front door open and a familiar gait clatter towards the basement. Even without the pad of heavy canine paws, he’d know that gait.

“Gonna finally tell me what’s eating you?” he calls back over his shoulder as Tony falters on the stairs, nervous.

When they come, the words are quiet and broken. “Kate’s pregnant.”

He reaches for the scotch and pours two glasses.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs gives him one more drink than they both know is necessary to get him on the drunk side of tipsy. He hits the talkative stage and his mouth runs away with him. Throughout his ramblings, Gibbs says nothing, just watches him with those blue eyes and piercing stare, and Tony’s never felt more inadequate. If this was Gibbs, he wouldn’t hesitate. He wouldn’t be frozen with fear about becoming a dad. He’d be a great dad, the best, and there’s a childish part of Tony that’s jealous as shit of the imaginary kid he’s just conjured in his mind that’s lucky enough to have Gibbs as a dad.

Unlike the real kid Tony himself has conjured with his dick, who’s stuck with him.

“I can’t do this,” he chokes, his glass empty, and his resolve wavering. He keeps spinning from one thought to another; in the morning, he’s hopeful, at lunchtime, he’s torn, and, by dinner, he knows his whole life is a mistake that refuses to resolve itself neatly and with finality.

And, by the early hours when it’s dark and cold, he knows he’s going to drag everyone around him down too. Kate, this kid, their families, their teammates.

“Yes, you can,” Gibbs says simply, and takes his glass away. When it returns, it’s filled with clear water and his keys are gone. “Tony, any kid would be lucky to call you dad.”

And Tony blinks, thinks about that statement for a second and wonders if he’s hallucinating. A nose that’s too small and delicate to be Fitz’s taps his leg, and he looks down into Kali’s dark gaze.

“You’re going to be fantastic,” she says calmly, pressing her muzzle into his palm. She’s warm and her fur is coarse compared to Fitz’s, and he can’t believe how fragile she feels under his fingertips. She’s so much smaller than he’d ever have imagined a part of Gibbs could be. It’s captivating. “We know you will.”

She sounds so sure, he can’t help but believe her.

After all, Gibbs has never lied to him before.

 

* * *

 

She opens her door and Tony is there with the blankest expression she’s ever seen on him. He doesn’t open with hello or a joke or a smile. Instead he just swallows heavily and says, “Do you want this?”

And she hasn’t thought about it enough yet, maybe there’s not enough time to really think this through, but she says, “Yes,” and she realizes it’s not a lie. She’s thirty-three, closer to thirty-four. She wants her career. She wants her life. She wants a family.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting all of it.

But thirty-four is close to thirty-five, and thirty-five is closer to forty, and, by then, time is running out. _Is it unfair to continue with this because I’m scared of getting older_? she thinks wildly, but she doesn’t know how to even begin asking him that.

He nods. Once. Then once again. She watches his throat work as he swallows, a bead of sweat working down his neck to pool in the hollow by his collar bone. “Okay,” he says, and he’s still blank, almost shell shocked. “Okay. I’m not… I’m no Mike Brady, okay? I can’t do the white picket fence and the two point five kids and the house with a backyard thing…”

“Tony,” she says, and he stops, breathing rapidly, looking ill. Fitz is watching, her eyes darkly curious, and this is one of those moments that change your life and it’s happening on the shitty carpet of her apartment building’s hallway. “I don’t want that. We’re not that. We’re just… how we are is how we can be, plus one. We can do that.”

He nods again, moving jerkily like a puppet controlled by unsteady hands. “Yes. Yes… we can do that. Thank you.”

And maybe this is mistake, it almost certainly is, but at least they’re in it together now.

 

* * *

 

She rings them again.

“Caitlin!” her mother exclaims, her delight evident. Kate pushes back a flicker of guilt. She should call them more often. “Give me a second to find your father, I’ll put you on speaker.”

“Wait, Mom…” She trails off. There’s a long moment of hushed silence on the other end that turns quickly to the fear that Kate knows is thick in the families of law enforcement. “Don’t worry, I’m fine, I’m okay. Can… can we talk?”

“Of course, hon,” her mom says quickly. “What’s wrong?”

She tells her, pacing in the kitchen with one hand resting tentatively on her stomach, as though the foetus can hear her conversation. As though it’s more than just a collection of cells with the possibility of one day having a personality and a life and… Baoth rustles nervously, picking up the shiver that chills her.

“We’ll be here for you, Kate,” her mom says finally. “Whatever happens. And for our… oh my god, we’re going to be grandparents. Again!” Kate smiles and everything begins to feel okay again.

They can do this.

 

* * *

 

Abby practically drags him into the lab by his shirtfront, and it would take a much stupider man than he to avoid that eagerness. “Tony, Tony, come look!”

“Abby, if this is like last time, you know Gibbs is going to find out,” he warns, but then he sees Mort and what Mort is holding, and Kate is standing there with a weird grin and, _what the hell is that._

“Isn’t it cool?” Mort chatters, bouncing on his hind paws, and Tony narrows his eyes and tilts his head to try and answer that question.

“It’s a blob,” he says finally. Fitz puts her paws on the table and heaves herself onto her hind legs, squinting at the blob as well, her nose twitching.

“It’s a baby,” Abby beams, and Tony does a fucking double take because no baby he’s ever seen has ever looks quite so… beany. “Well, okay, not quite. But it will be! I call it the ‘Tatelet.’ It’s so you can see how the real Tatelet is going!”

“It’s lovely,” Kate coos, and maybe the baby has done something to her brain, but Tony can’t think of anything _less_ lovely.

“It’s kinda creepy,” McGee adds from his perch on Abby’s desk in the next room, and Tony’s never been gladder to see him.

“It’s really creepy!” he adds, backing away as Abby takes the lump and offers it to him. “Wait, does our kid look like that?! It’s gonna… not look like that, right? If it comes out like that, I’m putting it back.” Kate’s face darkens and Fitz drops like a gun had been fired, hiding behind the table. Abby’s face takes on an expression best described as the face someone makes right before they chant, _you done fucked up,_ and Tony groans.

“Might wanna make yourself scarce, DiNozzo,” Gibbs says from behind him, and Tony has never been gladder to do so. “Abby, put it away. You’re scaring McGee.”

“You think it’s creepy now,” Fitz says woefully in the elevator, her tail drooping. “Wait until she gives it fingers.”

 

* * *

 

“Oh, we have a little show off here,” the sonographer exclaims, and her rabbit dæmon preens with delight. Kate tries not to squirm, the gloop on her belly cold and sticky, oddly uncomfortable about Tony seeing the slight swell to her stomach. “Would you look at that, all nice and clear for the camera!” Tony’s not looking and Kate can’t do anything but. It’s grainy, dark, and unmistakably a baby.

_Holy crap,_ her mind chants over and over, and she’s freaking out.

A cool hand grasps hers, fingers twining around, and she looks at Tony as he smiles reassuringly. “Alright, Kate?” he grunts, and glances at the screen, glances away. Looks back and his eyes widen and she sees the exact moment it all becomes real for him too. Her heart twists strangely, a weird rush of affection mixed with fear mixed with something plaintive flooding her brain and making it hard to focus on the sonographer’s excited chatter.

“Well, sometimes it’s a bit fiddly to tell the sex at this date, but no problems today,” she says, turning to Kate and smiling widely. “Would you like to know?”

Does she?

She looks at Tony, and he’s watching her. Waiting for her decision. The affection she’d felt for him vanishes like a flash, leaving her with the cool realization that he’s going to keep doing this, stepping back and leaving her with all the tough choices. Whether or not it’s because he doesn’t care, or because he’s scared of fucking up, she doesn’t know.

It’s a lonely feeling.

“Yes,” she says, and his mouth twitches into a smile. Fitz is practically in his lap, falling over herself to get her blocky head in position to see the baby, her tail _rat tat tat rat tat tat_ against the leg of his chair as her entire rear end waggles.

Oddly, the sonographer looks at Tony as she tells them, as though she can tell that he’s the one wavering on the edge of checking out of this experience. “She’s a little girl,” she says intently, and there’s that expression on him again. That wide-eyed _holy shit_ look. “We have a nice distinct hamburger sign,” she adds, pointing to a small group of darker and lighter shadows that, yeah, look vaguely like a hamburger.

Babies are weird.

“A daughter,” he says, and his hand squeezes around hers. “We’re having a daughter.”

The affection returns because no one who doesn’t care could ever look as scared/excited as he does right in that instant.

 

* * *

 

It’s strange how two simple words can take something that terrifies him and make it clear and wonderful.

_A daughter._

Not like him at all. This won’t be a little Anthony, all shyness and knock-knees and crushing loneliness. This won’t be his father repeating himself.

It’s a little girl with Kate’s laugh and Kate’s smile. Okay, maybe she’ll have his nose and his hair because let’s face it, DiNozzo’s have the market on those two features pretty much cornered, but everything else will be _Kate_.

It’s _perfect_.

And he can’t stop fucking smiling.

“Can I tell people?” he asks Kate, and she gives him a strange, cautious look, like she’s not used to him being this keen on the whole thing, and he’s sorry he’s made her that wary. But it’s okay, because he has five months to make up for it, and then the rest of their lives beyond that.

“Yes?” she says. “At least try to make sure I’m in the room though.”

And he does, although later they’ll argue about whether or not her foot barely through the door of Abby’s lab counts as ‘in’ or not. He stands by that she was absolutely in the room.

“We’re having a girl!” he crows, and three pairs of eyes turn to him, confused and then shocked and then excited, in turn. Fitz is beside herself, jumping up and racing in circles around Kali and Mort and even licking Chitta when he sidles far enough out of McGee’s reach to be fair game. Abby is shrieking and hugging everything and McGee just looks overwhelmed, but Tony’s only looking for one person’s approval. He looks to Gibbs and for a single, haunting moment, there’s an unimaginable pain on Gibbs’ face that leaves Tony cold, but it’s gone almost as soon as he registers it. Maybe it was never there at all.

“You’ll do her proud, DiNozzo,” he says, and it’s all Tony needs to know.

 

* * *

 

Ducky takes them out to lunch to celebrate and Kate almost cries again when he takes her hand while Tony is in the bathroom and tells her quietly that she’s going to be a fantastic mother.

“And of course,” he says with a gentle smile, “the lass is going to have the most wonderful extended family a child could hope for.”

“She really is,” Kate agrees, and tries to unobtrusively scrub her hand across her eyes to hide the watering. Goddamn it. Gibbs would never let her live it down if he saw her getting weepy over something so simple. “Oh god, Ducky, what if I mess this up? What if I mess her up?”

He laughs, and Netta laughs with him. Kate can’t help but smile at their amusement, sensing it isn’t really aimed at her fears. “Caitlin, I don’t have children myself,” he says. “But one thing I’ve learned over the years is that _every_ parent messes up their child in some way. That’s what makes it wonderful. We’re all the products of our parents messing up, trying to correct the flaws we see in them— sometimes we succeed, only to make mistakes all of our own. But I can assure you, you’re not going to be alone in this.”

As though her gaze has suddenly become magnetized, she glances around for Tony. “I do wonder…” she mumbles, not seeing him in the crowd sitting in the spring sunshine.

Ducky lays his hand on hers on the tabletop, nudging aside her half-eaten tuna salad. “Tony will stay by your side,” he says firmly. “Whether or not your agreement with him continues, he’s not the kind of man who walks away from a child. You can be assured, despite his insecurities, that will never change.”

Her phone beeps. “Shit,” she says, glancing around for Tony again. “I’ve gotta head out. I’ve got a Gitmo conference in twenty minutes. The hell is DiNozzo?” Baoth sighs heavily and spreads his wings, ready to swoop into the air and try to spot him. Then he freezes, and they both see him at once. The woman talking to him has the sharp kind of prettiness that draws men like DiNozzo like moths to a flame, and it doesn’t help that Kate’s flicked through his internet history before and seen his weakness for redheads.

“You go, Caitlin,” Ducky is saying, reclining back in his chair. He hasn’t seen them. “I’ll wait for Anthony and we’ll head back together. I need some sun before returning to my human jigsaw puzzle.”

She tears her eyes away from Tony and his new friend and smiles weakly, the small amount of tuna she’d eaten churning. “Yes,” she stammers, putting a hand up to hold Baoth steady as he wavers uncertainly. “Thanks for lunch, Ducky. I’ll see you after.”

She’s barely up the road when someone catches her arm with a gloved hand, pulling her close. Her first instinct is to shoot him, but she’s left her gun in the fucking car and it’s still five spaces ahead of her.

Her second instinct is to slam her head back into the jaw of whomever has her, but his other hand is on Baoth now, and she can see the flicker of a forked tongue from the sleeve gaping open by Baoth’s slim head.

“Hello, Kate,” Ari says.

If Tony was to turn around right now, he’d see them, but he doesn’t, and she has no choice but to quietly allow herself to be led away from safety and into the unknown.


	9. Pride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gibbs has long given up trying to quantify his gut feelings. He’s not McGee; his life isn’t ruled by statistics and data. He doesn’t go by Tony’s innate knowledge of what ticks behind the masks people wear, honed to a fine point by years of insecurity and mistrust. He doesn’t even have Kate’s trained profiling skills, for what they’re worth. Well, hell, they work, but Gibbs still doesn’t trust the ‘science’ behind them. Humans aren’t so easily shoved in boxes.

He doesn’t need to quantify this gut feeling.

Looking at it like McGee. Fact: Kate has a teleconference. Kate isn’t here. Kate wouldn’t miss something that someone went out of their way to organise at her request.

Looking at it like Tony—Tony himself. Guilty as shit and wearing that guilt as a second skin. He knows he’s up the proverbial shit creek, he just hasn’t realized that Kate’s the one drowning. If he did, he wouldn’t be smiling nervously like he’s expecting a calm ‘dammit DiNozzo’. The guilt would be gone and in its place, anger. Rage. He remembers with a sharp twist in his chest that while Gibbs knows both those emotions, they’ve never driven him to the point where he’s known the feeling of Kali’s teeth in a human’s throat.

Unlike Fitz. Unlike Tony.

And Kate? Phone off. Oysters? Pregnant and at lunch with a guy who delights in explaining the gory details of exactly how things like that can go wrong, and she has oysters?

No fed turns their phone off because of food poisoning. That’s not profiling, it just _is._

Tony is still standing there, still half grinning, and Fitz is watching Kali like she’s reaching for a lifeline. He knows, some part of him knows, that everything is about to go really fucking wrong.

“He’s got her,” Gibbs says to Tony, and wonders if he should bench him. He didn’t last time, but last time there wasn’t a kid involved. Gibbs knows how that can change things. “That bastard has got her, Tony.”

Tony’s smile slips and Gibbs sees the anger.

He doesn’t bench him.

Maybe when they find Ari, he won’t even stop him from doing what they all know he’s capable of.

 

* * *

 

Baoth doesn’t let Ari come between him and his human. He’s mantled, beak gaping, hissing furiously and stalking on the grainy surface of the table between them. Giving away everything Kate doesn’t want him to. Overprotective. Edgy. There’s fear in the ruffle of his feathers, in the rattle of his warning.

And then, it happens.

Gibbs would be so pleased. When it came down to it, after all her arguments that humans were mind over matter, her instincts betrayed her.

Ari, holding her gun with the casualness of someone who’d never had Gibbs on their ass at the firing range, tilts the barrel in her direction. Leans forward slightly, towering. Taller than her. A threat. His dæmon bares its hood and even the practised cool in his eyes doesn’t hide the danger implicit in the move. And she pulls away, automatic, instinctive. Turns to the side with a twitching jerk, even though she doesn’t break eye contact with the round, dark eye of the gun barrel.

Her arm drops for a second, just a second, protecting her stomach. Ari sees it.

“Oh,” he says, one of his eyebrows raising. His dæmon laughs, and it’s a cruel sound. Kate stares him in his green eyes; in another life, she might have thought them kind. In this one?

Well, it’s hard to believe the tale that his eyes tell when his soul is fork-tongued and spitting at his feet. She’s felt the cruelty of that sinuous body and knows it’s a reflection of his own.

“You say that we send our children to die for our cause,” Ari continues, reaching the hand that isn’t holding the gun down as though to run his fingers along the curve of her belly. Baoth shrieks and lashes out, missing barely: “at least we allow them to leave their mothers’ wombs before throwing them into the mouth of the snake.”

“Go to hell,” she says calmly. “You’re not going to shoot a fed. You’re not going to shoot a woman, let alone a pregnant one. You’re _certainly_ not going to shoot a pregnant fed. You’ll have every agent and officer down on your goddamn head, they’ll put your face on fucking milk cartons. Your little racket won’t like that kind of publicity.”

“Two out of three, Caitlin,” he says coldly, and then winks.

She hopes she’s still alive to see Gibbs shoot him.

 

* * *

 

“You will help us, Caitlin.”

“And if I don’t?”

Marta is a beauty with red hair and a polecat dæmon with the glossiest coat Kate’s ever seen on vermin. She’s also seen her before.

_Dammit, Tony._

“Tell our guest how you plan to entertain Agent DiNozzo tonight,” Ari tells the woman, watching Kate like Baoth watches a mouse.

“I’d planned on putting a bullet in the back of his head as I ran my fingers through his hair,” Marta replies with a weasel-smile, “but he proved remarkably resistant to my charm. In fact, I’d say his attention was all on… well, someone else. My poor ego, being upstaged by such a plain creature.” Cold laughter that Kate ignores as she focuses on controlling her reaction. _Don’t give it away, don’t give it away._ “So, I guess I’ll just have to shoot him through the window of his apartment as he prepares to sleep. Did you know he sleeps in a single bed?”

Ari leans in close and this is a test, it’s a fucking test, and she’s going to fail. “I wonder if his canine will have time to yelp before she becomes nothing but Dust,” he says; her gut lurches and she vomits with the image of Tony’s blank eyes and red mixed with gold painting his skin.

“Remind me to congratulate Agent DiNozzo on your child,” Ari continues, leaning back in his chair with a cocky grin. “I’m surprised Gibbs allows such indiscretions between his team. How unprofessional.”

Fuck.

 

* * *

 

See, Tony is used to hot anger. Hot, racing anger that boils his blood and makes his fists clench and makes Fitz’s bark turn deep and hungry. The kind of anger that makes sensible men do stupid things. Tony’s never been sensible, but he’s been stupid plenty.

This isn’t that anger.

At first it is. It’s a hot rush that comes with guilt and shock and vivid memories of that day not so long ago with Ari in autopsy and Kate in there too. Then, he goes to Abby’s lab because Abby has always been the bungee cord that’s pulled him away from stupid in the past. Gibbs needs him not stupid at the moment. Kate needs him not stupid.

He needs himself not stupid, because if he fucks this up, he doesn’t think there’s a coming back from it.

He goes to Abby’s lab, and Abby is holding the blob, except it’s not much of a blob anymore, not really. It’s the size of a cantaloupe and there’s fingers and toes and all those things that people seem to get really excited about. Tony’s never understood getting excited about those until he’s standing in Abby’s lab looking down at the blob and saying quite calmly, “What are you going to do with it if this goes wrong?”

And Abby almost drops the fucking thing, which makes his heart jump into his throat and Fitz yelp in terror, and then the rage hits. It’s cold. It’s hot for a flash, and then it’s ice cold and he’s thinking clearer than he ever has.

Ari is a fucking dead man.

“Tony,” Abby whispers, but he turns and walks out.

If this goes wrong, not even Gibbs will stop him from destroying the smug-faced prick between him and his daughter.

 

* * *

 

Ari shoots Marta, so she was wrong when she’d said he wouldn’t shoot a woman. She’d suspected she was. Then he tells her he’s Mossad, and Gibbs really isn’t going to be happy about that. He tells her congratulations and that he hopes that Tony knows how lucky he is, and he says it like he’s laughing. Kate watches him walk away and does nothing because their hands are tied now. Baoth is on her leg, his wing against her stomach, and she’s not sure if the kid is kicking angrily at the sight of Ari’s back or happily because they’re both still alive.

“You’re worried about Gibbs’ reaction?” Baoth says. Ari is gone, the sun has moved since then, and she can see a familiar car pulling up. The Calvary, here at last. “Not Tony?”

“Tony?” she asks, and like she’d summoned him she can see him bounding out the car and jogging towards her. Fitz races ahead. If she didn’t know better, she’d say that was fear driving them. “That would require him to care about something other than himself.” That’s unfair and she knows it almost immediately.

“You alright? Where’s Ari? We got a call, said you were here, we thought…” Tony is green under a sheen of sweat, and his eyes are on her gut.

“Face is up here, DiNozzo,” she replies, standing and tucking her gun back into its holster. She’s been holding it on her lap since Ari walked away, almost protectively. Just in case. Marta’s body is still cooling nearby. “We’re fine. Well, she’s not, I…”

And she stops because he’s lunged and pulled her into a hug that reeks of sweat and fear, and she can feel his heartbeat jack-rabbiting against her.

“Ari’s gone?” Gibbs asks quietly, coming up behind them. She can’t get out of Tony’s grip because she’s pretty sure he’s relying on her to remain upright, and because Fitz is pressed against the back of her legs like she’s trying to push them even closer.

“Ari’s Mossad,” she says glumly, and the galloping leap of shock that Tony’s heart does reverberates through her chest-bone. “He’s on our side, Gibbs.”

Cool fingers trace the bruise on her cheekbone. “Like fuck he is,” Tony says, and she was wrong. It’s not fear that’s making his heart race or his sweat pool.

In his eyes is a cold anger that almost scares her, and in it she can see the promise of Ari’s death.

 

* * *

 

Kali growls, and she and the cobra circle each other, black and red. Gibbs watches them warily out of the corner of his eye. Autopsy is cold and he’s pleased, because he can feel the chill sharpening his mind, and he needs it sharp when facing the man who seemed to delight in placing himself between Gibbs and his team.

“She was beautiful,” Gibbs says, looking down at the redheaded woman Ari had murdered. Her death is grieved by few and avenged by no one. That doesn’t seem right.

“Very,” Ari agrees, nodding and looking down at her without a modicum of emotion on his blank face. “As is Caitlin. Agent DiNozzo has good taste.”

His mouth goes dry and Kali snarls, a vixen snarl, wild and dangerous. “If you touch her again, I’ll end you,” Gibbs promises him.

“So protective.” Ari eyes him warily, his face shadowed by the unlit gloom of the autopsy room. “You are a proud man, my friend. You burn with it; it drives you. If Caitlin had died today, would it have been grief or shattered pride that destroyed you? You are an easy man to hurt.”

“Not so easy,” Gibbs says, and there’s a hint of the fox in his voice now too. “You’ll find I have very little to lose.”

Ari’s reply is taunting. “Says the liar to the snake.”

 

* * *

 

Tony is hovering, compliant, _nice_. He’s not calling her names or rambling about movies or getting on her nerves. Instead, he’s offering her endless cups of tea and cooking dinner without a complaint.

And she’s hating every fucking minute of it.

“Tony, seriously, I’m fine,” she finally snaps, after trying to sneak away to have a bath to soothe her aching back and finds that he’d followed her. “Leave me alone, please!”

He shrinks back like a kicked puppy, and she sees Fitz stick her head around the doorway up the hall, her ears crooked and eyes soft, trying to gauge if she’s needed to lighten the mood before they start fighting. “Just…” he says, and stops. Licks his lower lip. She watches the shift of his face as he sucks at the inside of his cheek, trying to reach for the right thing to say. He’s lost for words so rarely that it’s fascinating to see, if a little bizarre. “I didn’t get to kick Ari’s ass today, okay. I was ready to tear him apart and then you were fine and he was gone and… I just want to help, please?”

He said please. _Dammit_.

“Fine,” she agrees reluctantly, and that’s how they end up with her in the bath and he perched on the side, washing her back like she’s fragile. There’s a frighteningly intense expression on his face, and she has the uncomfortable sensation that he’s trying to commit her to memory in this moment. Fitz leans her head on the side of the tub next to him, and Kate takes the opportunity to scoop up a handful of bubbles and pile them on the dog’s blocky muzzle. She narrows her eyes and sneezes, sending bubbles flying.

There’s some stuck in Tony’s hair, and Kate can’t help but laugh. “Immature, Kate,” Tony says pertly, squeezing the sponge out over her head and sending rivulets of soapy water dribbling down her face. “You’re supposed to be the adult here.”

“Says the man with bubbles in his hair,” she chokes out between trying to breathe, and he just smiles. The bubbles are still there. It’s maddening. “They’re going to drip in your eyes.”

“Good,” he says mournfully, rubbing at a spot on his shirt. He should have taken his clothes off. She thinks of recommending that, and then maybe recommending something else, and bites her lip before _that_ thought can show on her face and derail this entire moment. “Then you can take care of me and I can abuse your trust by flinging soap in your face.” She wants to laugh, but Baoth has dropped lightly down from his perch above where he’s been silently judging them, and he’s landed on Tony’s shoulder. Tony blinks, turns his head, and stills.

“Idiot,” says Baoth quietly, and runs his beak through Tony’s hair, knocking the bubbles back into the bath. “Silly idiot.” That clever, gentle beak shifts, nibbling at Tony’s ear, and his pupils have gone wide and dark with mixed shock and arousal. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

Tony looks at her for permission and she nods because holy fuck she _wants_ him to, and he reaches up and takes the kestrel in his wide cupped hands. Baoth settles on his palms, delicate and dangerous all at once, and closes his eyes as Tony strokes his smooth feathers. Every touch sends ripples of sensation racing down Kate’s spine, and she can see the hair raising on her arms.

Almost like she knows, the baby shifts inside her, and it’s a strange, frozen moment that she knows she’s going to carry the memory of forever.

“We love you,” Fitz says sleepily, her eyes half closed and muzzle still damp, and it’s entirely unnecessary because Kate can already feel that in his touch. It doesn’t feel like the kind of burning love she’s felt from partners in the past; it’s flavoured more with friendship and trust, but there’s love there too and it’s the kind of love that tends to see hard times through. She doesn’t know how to put that into words.

Instead, she cups her hand around the dog’s silky ear and lets her reply speak for itself in the trail of her fingers through the thick fur.


	10. Named

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Tony is the master of avoidance, Kate is the mistress of ‘not letting Tony avoid things’. It’s impressive, if a little grating.

“Colour of the nursery?” she asks one day, and he changes the subject to the weather. She glares.

“What do you think of this day-care?” she asks another time, and he wonders when his life had suddenly become all about their soon to be oncoming spawn. Surely, he has other stuff going on? By the time he snaps out of his musing, she’s made a noise of disgust and walked away.

She’s not even subtle about the last thing. He walks in to find her and Abby holding a book of baby names, and he starts wishing it was seven months ago and this is some kind of never-ending nightmare.

To escape, he bolts to Gibbs’ and doesn’t tell him why he’s there.

 

* * *

 

He spends hours on it. When he isn’t down there, he throws a thick tarp over the framework to keep it away from prying eyes. Two sets of prying eyes in particular. His boat stands forgotten for the time being, but there’s something slightly more appealing about this work anyway. He’d thought about naming the boat Kelly when she’s finished. Toyed with the idea. Remembering a child long gone.

It’s weirdly cathartic to instead think of the one with life still to live.

He smooths the sandpaper over the lines of his gift to them, and considers how fleeting their use of it will be. Almost smiles with the memory. It’s alright. There’ll be more time, more gifts. Hell, all he has is time. His house is empty.

He uses a pencil to lightly sketch a bird hovering on the side. Below it, a dog will bound. He’s no artist, but he can do shapes. They’ll be clear enough. Crude, but workable. At least it’s more useful than the boat he’ll never sail, anyway. He can add it to the list of his regrets, if there’s room.

 

* * *

 

“What was your mom’s name?” Kate follows Tony doggedly around the room as he tries to ignore her questions. There’s paint on his shirt and his hands, and the shirt probably cost more than everything in their half-built nursery, but he doesn’t seem to care.

“We’re not naming her after someone,” Tony replies, his mouth twisting. “Not her first name anyway. Let her be herself.” It’s not a helpful answer but it’s an answer of some kind, and that’s more than what she’s gotten from him before now.

She’s going to get him involved in this even if she has to drag him kicking and screaming.

“Fine. Okay. Catherine?”

He shudders. “You haven’t seen _Basic Instinct_ , have you? You know, 1992 erotic thriller. Features Sharon Stone as Catherine Tramell. We had it on VCR, broke the damn tape trying to pause it on the exact moment she spreads—”

Kate cuts him off. “Fine! Not Catherine. Susanna?”

“ _Girl, Interrupted_. 1999, set in a mental institution…”

“Don’t you ever read books?” Kate lifts a hand to push hair out of her face, only pausing when she notes the yellow paint on her fingers. She wipes them on Fitz as the dæmon strolls past, ignoring her whine of protest. “Seriously, Tony, are you going to nix everything I say because of _movies_?”

“No,” he lies, leaning against the wall. She flinches and decides against reminding him that the paint is still wet. _Rest in peace, expensive shirt_ , she thinks glumly.

“Amelia?” she tries, cautious.

_“Coughserialkiller,”_ he mutters. Then he sees her face and grins nervously. “Real life one, not a movie. That err… doesn’t help does it? She killed babies, Kate, _babies_. We can’t name our daughter after a baby-killer!”

“You could try suggesting something!” she says, throwing her arms in the air in frustration. “For fucks sake, Tony, you wanna try being a little less of a dead weight on this pregnancy?”

Fitz whines again and that’s the only warning she gets that his temper has flared. “I don’t care!” he yells back, peeling himself off of the wall with a rough unsticking noise. “I don’t fucking care what you call her okay? I don’t live here, I won’t be here, how fucking involved am I anyway? You’re keeping me at arm’s length when it suits you, and then you decide you want me _involved_? Okay fine, I’m involved. I want a fucking nursery in my apartment. I want some sign that I have a kid, some sign that I’m not just the dick that knocked you up. I want to be a dad! But I don’t give a flying fuck about the name because on the list of things I want to be involved in, it’s ranked really goddamn low compared to things I actually want a part of like ‘nappy changes’ and ‘being there when she walks’. Name her after the fucking queen for all I care!”

He’s breathing heavily and his nostrils are flaring, and she couldn’t be happier.

For once, she doesn’t respond to his irritation with her own, building a disagreement into an argument that leaves them both furious and raw. “Okay,” she says instead, settling back on her heels. The dæmons watch them, both wary, waiting to see how this night is going to end. “Fine. We’ll go with that.”

His eyes narrowed. “Which part?” he asks suspiciously.

She just smiles.

 

* * *

 

McGee brings books. So does Ducky. Kate will be pleased; their kid is going to be the most well-read toddler in DC. Abby brings clothes that both Kate and her sister make ridiculous noises over, and she also brings the goddamn blob.

“Look, Tony!” she exclaims, and Mort shows the cradled lump of blobbiness that is apparently the child Tony’s created. He looks because he doesn’t really have a choice, but he’s not happy about it. “Hair! And eyebrows! I made them both nice because you know… it’s you. I figured you wouldn’t like a baby with bad hair.”

“No baby of mine would ever have bad hair,” Tony says gingerly, but he’s also pretty sure that no baby of his would ever have bright blue hair or a Mohawk either. He wonders if Abby will let him burn the Tatelet when the real thing is born.

And, oh god, he almost referred to his child as the Tatelet. Abby is in his fucking _head_.

Anything he’s going to say is cut off by Gibbs sidling into the apartment with a bag of steaks in one hand, a six pack in the other, and a strangely intense expression. “Boss!” Tony cries thankfully, bolting from Abby right as Kate’s mom spots the Tatelet and wanders over looking curious and frightened, both emotions that Tony deeply sympathizes with.

“Come,” Gibbs grunts, jerking his head towards the door. Tony takes the steak and the beer, leaving them in a drippy pile by the shoe rack which Kate is no doubt going to kill him for after, and pads obediently after him into the hallway. Fitz follows, a bright blue bow stuck firmly to her flank and ribbons wrapped around her neck. He’d left her to the mercies of the women, figuring Ducky would keep them from being too terrible. By the looks of it, he’d joined in. That bowtie could only have come from one person.

“Mort made me pretty,” she says cheerily to Kali as they clomp down the stairs, and Kali just rolls her eyes. “I think the blue really sets off my eyes.”

They walk out of the apartment building and there’s Gibbs’ car complete with trailer and on it… “Wow,” Tony says, walking slowly over to it. “You’ve moved on from boats.”

Gibbs shrugs. “Knew Kate already bought one,” he says quietly. “Figured you’d want one for your place. Can drop it off for you after if you want.”

Tony runs a hand over the silky smooth finish of the wooden crib. “This isn’t lead based paint, is it?” he jokes weakly, because there’s the suggestion of a kestrel gliding in the air and a dog made of rough dashes of tan and black paint under that, and he’s getting stupidly fucking emotional over the both of them. “If she’s anything like me, she’ll put anything in her mouth. Oral fixations are in the DiNozzo genes.”

Gibbs doesn’t grace that with an answer because of course he’s thought of that, he thinks of everything. “Didn’t know her name,” he says, tapping his finger on a bare nameplate near the kestrel’s wingtip. “I can add it when it’s decided. Or Kate can; she’s better with a brush than I am.”

Tony stares at the crib and then he stares at his boss, and the only thing he can do that’s appropriate is clap him on the shoulder with a forced heartiness that doesn’t say anywhere near enough. He wants to hug him, wants to drag the gruff man close and somehow express how fucking much this means to him, but he can’t. There’s a low sigh from behind them, and they both turn to find Fitz wrapping herself around Kali with an almost painful amount of affection, their muzzles pressed together. Fitz’ tail waves madly, Kali’s twines around both their feet.

“Elizabeth,” Tony says finally, when the emotion recedes enough to let him speak. “We’re calling her Elizabeth.”

 

* * *

 

She’s glaring at the back of Gibbs’ head when the car bomb goes off. Later, she’d have no memory of what they’d been arguing about, but she could hazard a guess by the grouchy set of his shoulders that it was probably her going on maternity leave.

As she’s thrown forward face first into the dirt, she thinks that it always sucks when he’s right.

He’s on the ground too and her ears are ringing, Baoth is shaking dirt from his feathers where he’d hit the ground, and she’s not sure if the painful lurch of her gut is from the sudden, all-consuming fear of just landing on her fucking stomach, or if it’s something worse. Gibbs sits up, and he looks at her. Then he looks at her stomach, and his face tightens into an expression she can’t even begin to unravel. “Protection detail’s over, Kate,” he says, and his voice is hollow through the echoes of the bomb going off. “Get in the car. Now.”

“Are you okay?” Baoth says, gasping, his small frame shuddering as he tries to regain his wind. She picks him up as she carefully eases herself off the ground, one hand on the round shape of her belly and focusing intently on the baby. She moves. She’s moving. She’s fine. It’s fine. _Thank fuck._

“Yes,” she says dusting herself off and leaving Gibbs to shout at someone on the phone about, _you said it was clear!_

She’s sitting in the passenger seat and dreading the visit to the ER Gibbs is no doubt going to insist on when the bomb techs get here, when she feels a wet rush between her thighs.

“Oh shit,” she says, laying a hand across her reddened lap. For a single, haunting moment, she can’t think.

Luckily, he’s always been faster on the uptake than she has.

“Gibbs!” shrieks Baoth, launching out the window as though fired from a rocket.

 

* * *

 

Tony doesn’t answer. He’s probably in interrogation, with a suspect, he could be fucking _anywher_ e, and he’s not answering. The names of those Gibbs has failed dance in his head. _Shannon, Kelly, Shannon, Kelly, Elizabeth. Kelly, Elizabeth, and she wasn’t even born yet, why weren’t you behind her, why didn’t you catch her, why was she even fucking there?_

He paces the hallway outside where Kate’s being seen and Kali watches him from her station next to the door. She’s sitting motionless, white paws tucked in neatly, and tail curled around them. She could be a statue, except her eyes are moving.

“Calm down,” she says as he paces past.

“I am calm,” he snaps. “She shouldn’t have been there. Should have benched her weeks ago. Should have benched her at the beginning!”

“She wouldn’t have thanked you.”

“Yeah, well neither will Tony for this,” Gibbs says, and lets the sentence trail off into silence. He doesn’t want to think about _that_ phone-call. He gives up and calls Ducky. There’s no point calling Abby unless they want her here breaking down, and he needs someone with some damn _sense_ right now.

“Duck? Where’s Tony?”

 

* * *

 

Gibbs sidles in and he looks sick. Guilty. It’s a surprisingly DiNozzo-ish expression. “They’re tracking Tony down,” is all he says, and then he sits next to her while she stares blankly at the muted display of the foetal monitor.

“They think it’s probably okay,” she says once, trying for cheerful and just sounding strained. “They said there was a tear at the edge of the placenta, but only small and the bleeding had stopped by the time they did the ultrasound. They said she looks fine.”  He grunts in reply, but takes her hand. Squeezes it. Her eyes water and she blames the tension of waiting in this white-walled room with no clocks. What feels like an age passes, and she can’t think around the growing weight in her throat. “What if they’re wrong? What if she’s hurt in there?  What if I lose her?”

He jerks, his hand gripping almost painfully for a moment. One of their hands is sweaty. She thinks it might be hers, but he still doesn’t let go. “You won’t.”

“Might,” she chokes out, and she’s fucking crying, sobbing, and the heart rate monitor they’re making her wear is going mental. Baoth makes a noise, a cry, and she’s clinging to Gibbs like he’s not her boss, not here because she fucked up. Because she couldn’t walk away from the job when it would have been sensible.

A sudden weight on her legs and she and Gibbs both hiss with surprise as she’s suddenly faced with dark, gentle eyes over a narrow muzzle. Silver paws dent the blankets as she settles, tipping that careful snout up to lean on the swell of her belly. “Elizabeth’s okay,” Kali says quietly. Kate’s never heard her voice before; it’s beautiful. “I can hear her heartbeat. I can _feel_ her. You think someone with your brains and Tony’s stubbornness is going to let a little fall stop her?”

Christ, it’s almost more than she’s ever heard _Gibbs_ say.

“I just realized how terrifying this is,” Kate says, and she’s not sure if she’s talking to Gibbs or his dæmon. Kali is a warm, reassuring weight, and the desire to touch her is perverse and tantalizing. She doesn’t though, because that’s not what’s being offered here. “This child, this tiny little person, she’s relying on me to keep her safe. What if I mess up? I’d lose her. I don’t know her yet, but I don’t know if I could survive that.”

Kali looks at Gibbs and he makes a low noise like he’s about to say something, but doesn’t. Kali does, and now Kate is sure that it’s Gibbs sweating because he’s trembling, just a little, and it’s terrifying. “You can,” the fox says, and lays her ears flat with remembered pain. “You do survive and you do move on, but it never stops hurting. So you have to do everything you can to keep them safe, because it’s unbearable to fail. Unbearable.”

The moment hangs between them, a crossroads. Kate could step aside from her training in interrogation and in profiling, and she could ignore the history Kali has just bared to her. They could move on like nothing has happened. Or she could acknowledge it, like the gift it is. A quiet _you will not be alone,_ if this goes wrong.

She has the sick feeling that even DiNozzo doesn’t know this.

She makes her choice. “What was…?” She hesitates. Girl or boy? She remembers the pain that showed for a heartbeat when DiNozzo had announced their child’s sex. “What was her name?” She could still be wrong. She fucking hopes she’s wrong, because _Christ_ it hurts to think about.

His voice is husky; he draws his hand away like he’s protecting himself. Maybe he is. “Kelly.”

 

* * *

 

Her brother rocks up three days before _it_ happens, which is distressing because she’s never seen two men instantly take against each other as quickly as James and Tony do. Every time the two of them are in the apartment at the same time, there’s an undercurrent of low growls interspersed with her brother’s large gyrfalcon’s hisses. Baoth keeps well out of it, and suggests she does as well.

They’re well into a blistering disagreement about the best Bond movie when she realizes that the discomforting sensations from her abdomen that she’s been ignoring probably shouldn’t be ignored anymore. “Hmm,” she says, tugging her shirt up and narrowing her eyes at her grossly round stomach. Tony reassures her that it’s fine, it’s all fine, but for someone as fastidious with her physique as Kate, it’s a painful reminder of what’s changing.  

She’s gotten used to the sensations of the muscles moving without her telling them to over the past few weeks, tightening and relaxing around the big bubble of water and baby she’s carrying, but this is different. There’s a new, hard tension to her stomach, a different type of movement. Not terribly painful, but not the same as those other contractions.

“Bit early, isn’t she?” Baoth asks, shuffling across her shoulder and peering down. “That feels strange. I can feel it, you know.”

She should be both excited and terrified, and she is, but it’s a strangely calm excitement and a bizarrely calm terror.  She waits a while, like they suggested, and the next contraction is just over five minutes later and noticeably stronger.  There’s a sprained-muscle-feeling pain that has settled just behind her pubic bone and is sore enough to make her grimace. The back pain that’s been her constant companion all day is even worse.  

Time to go, if the kid gives her a damn chance. When the next one comes, she waits for it to end, because walking while her uterus is trying to both climb up out of her pelvis and fall out through the bottom of it at the same time is not something she’s keen on trying.

She walks out into the living room and bang on time because James is standing and Tony is growling and the two of them need to grow the fuck up, honestly. “Hate to break up this lovely chat,” she cuts in, reaching for her keys and lobbing them in the general direction of one of them. She doesn’t really care who. “But we may possibly have a child on her way. Who’s driving?”

Tony turns grey. She actually watches the blood drain from his face. It’s almost disappointing that she doesn’t have a camera.

James picks up the keys.

“Good lad,” she says, following him to the door as Tony dives for her bags. “Come on. I don’t think she’s keen on waiting.”


	11. Elizabeth Kelly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate’s not happy. Baoth isn’t happy. In their defence, Kate is currently trying to pop a kid out and Baoth is feeling the reverberations of that.

Tony has never been happier that he was born a dude.

“I don’t think I can do this,” he says within five seconds of entering the delivery room.

Kate gives him a _look_ , Baoth hisses, and even the nurses look askance at him. Fitz is standing at the foot of the bed, her eyes wide, almost in the way. The moment takes a long, frozen kind of quality, and Tony has, for a second, no fucking idea of where to put his hands or where to stand or even where to look.

“Ow,” whimpers Kate, very quietly, and it’s the most noise she’s made since about halfway through the car ride when she’d reached over, grabbed Tony’s hand hard enough to bruise and whispered, _“Fuck_.”

It’s a little unnerving. Tony expected shouting and screaming and threats of his immediate and painful death, _especially_ from Kate, but instead she’s pale and compliant and looking very much like she’s wishing to be anywhere else.

“I don’t think I can do this,” he repeats, and Kate does look at him now. Not past him, not through him, but clear at him, and her mouth twists.

“If you leave this room,” she says finally. “I’m telling Abby.”

He stays.

 

* * *

 

Tony called Gibbs first, but Abby still manages to beat him there. He’s not even surprised.

“Gibbs, Gibbs, Gibbs!” she yammers when she sees him striding up the hall. “Baby! Oh my god, baby baby baby.” She doesn’t appear able to string a sentence together coherently, bouncing on the spot with her hands waving in panicked flurries. Mort is racing in wonky figure eights around her legs, chattering. A hurried clatter of feet behind her and McGee arrives with his jacket half on and his shirt buttons crooked.

“Baby?” he asks hopefully.

“It’s been an hour, McGee,” Gibbs says, raising an eyebrow at him. Chitta is on his wrist, a dull cream, his tail curled around his arm and one eye watching the door to the maternity ward expectantly. “You wanna give Kate a little time?”

Abby issues a high-pitched whine and buries her head against McGee’s shoulder; muffled talking coming from where her face is pressed against into his shirt. Mort reaches up, bounding onto a chair to give himself some height, and Chitta shifts his grip and allows the tamarin to pick him up.

“How long do you reckon?” McGee asks, looking oddly pale for the guy neither in labour nor watching that labour.

Gibbs wonders in that moment how Tony is doing, and by Kali’s amused huff, he guesses the answer is ‘probably not well’. “When she’s ready, McGee,” he replies, settling back into the waiting room chair and closing his eyes.

 

* * *

 

“If it comes out weird, we can get a refund, right?” Tony asks one of the nurses, clearly attempting to take refuge in humour. Kate tries to calculate how far away he is from the bed and whether or not she can punch his arm to shut him the fuck up before he increases the stupid coming out of his mouth. “Hey, what are the rates on slightly used babies?”

She’s going to fucking kill him.

Instead of telling him that, she tightens her fingers in Fitz’ ruff and pulls the dæmon close; her solid head and soft eyes a constant comfort to offset Tony’s grating attempts at lightening the mood of the birth of his goddamn child.

His only fucking child, because he’s not coming near her again with his pants off.

“I can trip him down some stairs,” Fitz offers, and licks her hand.

“Head’s too thick, he’d bounce,” she pants between a roll of nauseating pain. “And that would hurt you too.”

Fitz might be a part of him, but he’s the best part by a mile.

 

* * *

 

A man wanders up to them, coffee in hand and massive raptor on his other arm, and even if he didn’t have the exact look that Kate usually wears when faced with something interesting, Gibbs would have still pegged him for a Todd.

“Kate’s brother, one of. James Todd,” the man introduces himself, and his dæmon arches his neck to peer haughtily down on Kali. Gibbs doesn’t know the exact breed of falcon, but it’s big and white with delicate bars of black across its back and a sharply hooked beak, and there’s nothing gentle about it.

He’s beginning to see a theme within Kate’s family.

He’s beginning to feel sorry for DiNozzo.

“Jethro Gibbs,” he says gruffly, shaking the man’s hand and letting the others introduce themselves. Ducky immediately launches into an excited spiel about a man who attended school with him who also had a gyrfalcon dæmon, and Gibbs tunes out.

“You’re worried,” says Kali when he sits back down, hopping up onto the chair next to him and putting her paws on the armrest so she’s level with his eye line. “Stop being worried.”

He snorts quietly, audible to no one but his dæmon. “It’s DiNozzo. When am I not worried?”

 

* * *

 

Tony looks like he’s about to pass out. It would be funny, if Kate wasn’t currently trying to push out a kid with a head the size of DiNozzo’s ego.

“Breathe, Tony,” she says, trying to remember to do the same.

He opens his eyes, takes one look at her, and closes them again. “Aren’t I supposed to be telling you that?” he asks.

A sharp pull and she can’t answer because there’s a head and now shoulders and _she is never fucking doing this again._

 

* * *

 

“You, ah… close with this Tony?” Kate’s brother asks once, standing in front of Gibbs’ chair and looking awkward. Gibbs looks up at him and raises an eyebrow. The man is almost looming. Gibbs doesn’t like looming, unless he’s the one doing it. And he really doesn’t like looming when the loomer is asking about DiNozzo in _that_ kind of voice. Kali doesn’t make a sound, she rarely does, but she straightens in the seat and her lips pull back to reveal white teeth that gleam. Todd backs up, slightly. And repeats the question.

“Close enough,” Gibbs grunts, and considers standing. “He’s gonna be a great dad. He’s good to Kate.”

He’s answering questions that the other man hasn’t asked.

He’s answering questions he knows he’d be asking if he was sitting here waiting on Kelly.

Todd’s mouth quirks into the catty smirk-smile that Kate’s perfected. Another family trait. For DiNozzo’s sake, Gibbs hopes the man doesn’t plan on hanging around. “Not worried about him being good to Kate. She can stick up for herself. I _am_ worried about introducing him to our parents.”

Ah. “Can’t help you there,” Gibbs says finally, and closes his eyes. He listens for the sounds of the man’s feet retreating and allows a smile to tease the corner of his mouth. “To be a fly on that wall,” he murmurs, and Kali chuckles softly.

 

* * *

 

“Heads crowning, you’re almost there,” the nurse says, and Tony swallows _hard_. “Does Dad want to see her coming out?”

_No!_

“No,” he squeaks. Fitz clatters to the ground and peers around Kate’s leg with almost obscene interest, the nurses edging aside warily so they don’t brush against her.

Fingers dig into his wrist. “This is,” Kate says carefully, punctuating each word with a sharp hiss. “The last fucking time you get to look at my vagina. And at least one of us is going to appreciate our daughter’s birth. Get the fuck down there and _appreciate it._ ”

“Oh, there’s just no arguing with you when you’re in a mood, is there?” he says, probably unwisely, and both Kate and Baoth shriek in answer.

_Holy shit._

She wants him down there, and he’s pretty sure he’s just earned himself at least twenty Gibbs-slaps for that last comment. Maybe he can atone slightly by doing this.

So, he does.

 

* * *

 

Abby is asleep on McGee’s shoulder when Tony appears, looking drawn and haggard and what Gibbs can only describe as shell-shocked. There’s blood on the gown he’s wearing, a tiny splatter that only Gibbs notices, and he’s sweated clear through his shirt.

Gibbs remembers looking like that.

Ducky is awake but, aside from Gibbs, he’s the only one. He smiles as Tony walks up to them, because there’s a strange glow in Tony’s red-rimmed eyes that promises good news.

“Daughter born. Both fine. They made me look. Never again,” Tony rasps, and Fitz isn’t there but if she was, Gibbs is willing to bet she’d be whining her assent. “Kate says you can come say hi, Gibbs. She was… actually kind of weirdly insistent.” He shakes his head, glassy eyed, and Gibbs suspects that if Kate is in half the state he’s in, this is going to be a quick visit. “Should I be jealous?” It’s a weak attempt at a joke.

“If baby and mother are healthy and hale, I shall collect our sleepy ducklings and shepherd them home,” Ducky murmurs. Netta yawns, ambling up from her seat at his feet. “We shall return after all have had a good long sleep.”

DiNozzo waves a hand in a half-hearted goodbye, looking around absently. “Brother?” he asks, his mouth narrowing. Gibbs almost smirks.

“Stepped out.” He follows Tony silently into the room, nodding to the nurse wandering out to re-unite with her bright-eyed ram dæmon waiting in the small roped area set aside for the dæmons too unwieldy to be allowed into the birthing suite.

Then they’re in the room, and Gibbs is faced with a surprisingly alert looking Kate holding her daughter; Baoth on her shoulder and Fitz with only her hind legs on the floor, almost oozing onto the bed with barely contained excitement, tail wagging madly. There’s a clean blanket over her, the worst of the mess cleared away, and the tang of blood and sweat barely lingers. He can guess that ten minutes ago, that probably wasn’t the case.

“Knew you’d be lurking out there,” Kate says, smiling wobblily, and on a second glance he can tell she’s a little stunned. Still a damn sight better than DiNozzo though, who’s looking everywhere but at the bundle of baby in his partner’s arms. “I figured you should be the first to say hi… and we wanted to ask you something.”

Tony is right behind him; close enough that Gibbs can feel warm air on the back of his neck. “Wanna be a godfather?” he asks, and even though he’d almost known the question was coming, his heart still flips in his chest.

“I…” he says, and loses his words. Swallows. Nods. Kate beams back at him. Mind oddly clear of any emotion and wholly unsure of this moment, he steps forward. Then once more. Then she comes into sight.

“Say she’s beautiful, please,” Kate says. “I really don’t need to know how weird she looks right now. As I’ve already told _Tony_.”

“She’s beautiful,” he says obediently, and he means it. In his head, Kelly this little. His shock at how squished and red and angry she’d looked at first. His shock at how quickly she’d become the most beautiful girl in the world.

His shock at how quickly she’d left him.

Kate’s eyes meet his and she knows. He can see it.

“Hello, Elizabeth,” he says finally, and smiles. She shifts in place, mouth opening wide in a yawn and head turning very slightly in his direction. Under the weirdness of being newly born, her features are delicate. A careful tiny mouth (Kate, obviously), a shock of dark hair (Tony) and eyes closed but still with the vaguest promise of holding their mother’s shape (a perfect mix). No dæmon yet. That will come.

“Look at that, two hours old and she’s already listening out for your voice,” Kate complains, rolling her eyes. “She really is her dad’s daughter.”

Gibbs thinks privately that she’s very likely going to be the best of both of them.

 

* * *

 

Ducky is bustling. He’s always bustling in some way, but right now his bustling is warm and affectionate and there’s a glowing kind of pride in his eyes that makes Kate feel all soft and accomplished. She doesn’t tell DiNozzo this, she couldn’t take the shame of his glee at her sappiness.

“Does she have a middle name?” Ducky asks, tickling under their daughter’s chin. Still no dæmon. Kate shoves back a spark of fear at that, the haunting knowledge of babies whose dæmons never materialized sticking in the back of her mind. Those babies died. Within weeks, fading away having never really lived. She feels ill. Elizabeth turns her head at Ducky’s gentle touch, mouth searching hungrily for his finger, earning herself a genial chuckle from the man.

“Kelly,” Tony says, grinning. He doesn’t seem worried yet. None of them do. She should calm down. “Elizabeth Kelly. Kate picked it, it’s an old family name.”

And Ducky smiles because he doesn’t know either, only she does, and she’s glad that Gibbs isn’t there. “Lovely name,” Ducky says, and chatters away, and she stares at her daughter in his arms and waits.

 

* * *

 

“They’re actually just going to let us walk out of here with her?” Tony asks for the fifth time, hovering uncertainly with his arm full of flowers and Kate’s belongings. Fitz is sitting next to her, a bundle of flowers in her mouth. Kate has the carrier with Elizabeth inside, and they’re going home.

“Yes, Tony, they’re going to let us leave here with our kid. What did you think, they’d lock us in?”

He has the kind of panicked face that she only ever sees on him when Gibbs walks into work without a coffee. “But she doesn’t even have a dæmon yet. Shouldn’t her dæmon be here by now? What if something’s wrong? We won’t be able to help her at home!”

They’re interrupted by James sticking his head in the room, dangling keys from his finger. “Ready to go?” he asks. Kate nods, ignoring Tony’s whine of misery. A nurse follows James in, pushing a wheelchair. Kate glares, gets in and glares some more, glances down at their sleeping daughter, and takes a deep breath.

This is it. The start of something.

They leave the hospital together.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs is there when it happens. There’s a wail from the nursery and Kate’s face taking on a pinched kind of nervousness that doesn’t bode well. He’d seen it within moments of walking into the house, the strain on the new parents’ faces. The exhaustion on Kate’s, the stress on Tony’s, the fear on them both. James Todd is still there, hovering, but there’s none of the acid in his tone when he speaks to Tony now. Just a calm kind of reassurance that suggests that maybe the man is slightly less Kate than he’d appeared. When Kate hurts, she lashes out. She doesn’t stop with a kind word for a man she doesn’t like.

Her brother on the other hand, does.

Kate vanishes into the room and Tony folds into himself, tucking his shoulders forward and standing back. Todd looks to him, waits a moment, then follows his sister. Tony doesn’t. Fitz doesn’t.

“I feel out of place,” he says, looking up and catching Gibbs’ questioning gaze. “I don’t…”

A startled cry and this time they both move, because that’s Kate’s voice.

Gibbs is in the room steps behind Tony and Kate is smiling, laughing, alive with some kind of panicked relief. “Tony,” she breathes, stepping back and taking his hand with a tender kind of affection that twists something in Gibbs’ heart to see. “ _Look_.”

And there’s two in the crib now; the delicate limbed baby with her sleepy-eyed unfocused gaze, and a bundle of paws and fur sprawled next to her that almost dwarfs her in size. Rounded ears still folded over and eyes closed tight; at the sound of Tony’s soft _oh_ its stubby tail flicks in response.

“Looks like she does take after her dad,” Todd says quietly, stepping back so he’s standing by Gibbs and out of the way of this private moment between the small family. “Got a little pup dæmon. Took her time about it too.”

Fitz is crowding the crib, her tail wagging so wildly that her ass end is in danger of slipping over, but Baoth lands on a shelf near Gibbs’ head. His talons click as he shuffles over. There’s no discussion between him and the Alsatian dæmon, but there’s a quiet confidence in his voice as he looks down at them and tells them the new dæmon’s name. “Ahlexis.”

 

* * *

 

When she’s not screaming, she’s not eating. When she _is_ screaming, they’re not sleeping. When Tony doesn’t sleep, he gets bitchy.

In unrelated news, he’s sleeping on the couch while Kate’s voice floats down the hall saying, _eat something goddammit, why won’t you eat, what the hell do you even want,_ and the tone is suspiciously close to begging. And he doesn’t go to her, because as the past three weeks have proven irrefutably, he was right when he said he wasn’t ready for this.

He hears the creak of the guest room door and heavy footsteps. Tony stares at the shadows flickering on the roof as James’ voice interrupts Kate’s.

“Go to bed,” he says. “There’s bottle in the fridge, yeah? I’ll try. We’ll call mom in the morning.”

If she replies, Tony doesn’t hear. Just the quiet padding of her feet towards him.

“I can help you know,” he says quietly, and he already knows the answer. He’s heard it already when she screamed at breakfast with her pup dæmon howling along and again when she wouldn’t do anything but squall when he tried to hold her at lunch, and one last time when he’d finally lost his temper two hours ago and asked Kate what the fuck she expected him to do. Kate had just stared at him with eyes ringed dark with purple bruising and said nothing.

“Go to hell, DiNozzo,” she snaps now, and manages to slam the door of her bedroom without it actually making a sound. Fitz moves towards the bedroom like she plans on fixing this for him, but he rolls off the couch and heads for the door.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs wakes up on the couch in the silent hours of the morning to a message that’s been three weeks coming.

**From: Kate Todd**

**Is Tony with you? His daughter is sick. Going to ER.**

Dammit, DiNozzo.

He goes for his keys and heads for where he knows Tony will be, Kali following without a word.

 

* * *

 

Tony is stone cold sober and sitting on the curb outside Gibbs’ house when the man steps out and strides towards his car. He doesn’t say anything, knowing that either Gibbs or Kali will notice him or his dæmon, and he’s right. Gibbs stops and his sigh is audible across the frozen quiet of the night, followed by the swish of his feet on the rain-damp grass. He stands over them for a long moment, before slowly lowering himself to sit in the gutter with them, his legs sprawling out onto the road.

“Kate’s taking Elizabeth to ER,” he says finally, and Tony’s gut cramps painfully. “You need to do better than this, DiNozzo.”

“She pushes me away,” he replies, and there’s a whine in his voice. Fuck. “I try to help and she gets shitty and pushes me away.” Gibbs hums in his throat and leans back onto his arms, their shoulders brushing together. There’s a jolt of something hot and uncomfortable in Tony’s stomach at the contact, his mouth going dry. Fighting the desire to lean into that touch, he stares at the road like he’s trying to bore a hole through the dark asphalt. Fitz shudders at the sudden turmoil of emotion and growls very softly.

Gibbs stiffens and pulls away, his light eyes locked on the dæmon and her bristling fur.

“When was the last time you went home?” Gibbs says finally, and he’s still staring at Fitz. Kali steps carefully over to the dog, extending her muzzle up in a cautious greeting. Fitz licks her nose in return, folding her own over-sized ears back flat against her skull. The two dæmons stand, almost quivering, muzzles pressed together.

Tony tries not to think too hard about what the fuck any of it means, and chokes back whatever his exhaustion and loneliness and misery is trying to force him to say. “Before she was born. I dunno. A month? Two?”

Gibbs’ expression is unfathomable. “Thought you two weren’t gonna be playing happy families.” There’s a tightness around his mouth, almost unhappiness. Tony assumes he’s put it there somehow; failed in some way. “Thought you both knew you weren’t suited to it.”

There’s a low sigh from one of the dæmons—almost certainly Fitz—and she lies down, pressing her chin to the ground and eyeing them. Kali sidles around until she’s against the larger dog’s side and watches them as well, silent as always. “You think the problem is I’m there _too much_?” Tony asks with a bark of harsh laughter. “Gibbs, I’m practically an absentee dad without leaving the apartment!”

He shrugs. “So, leave the apartment. You’ve got a crib. Give Kate a chance to rest. Take Elizabeth to your home. Learn how to be a dad without stepping on each other’s toes. You three can figure it out.”

“You think I’d do better at it on my own?” Tony asks him, almost cautiously. He could do this. The idea is… almost tantalizing. Just him and his daughter and their dæmons, just for a little while. A day. Maybe two. Then back to Kate’s. Try again. Could that be it?

Gibbs shrugs once more and leans back again, slowly. Their shoulders press together. Fitz closes her eyes. “Didn’t say you’d be alone. I’m a phone call away.” They sit there like that for another ten minutes, not speaking, before Gibbs drives him to the ER and his family.

And that’s the turning point.


	12. Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At some point between Elizabeth being born and now, sitting in the ER with an irritable infant and her equally irritable puppy dæmon both shrieking the paint off the walls, Kate thinks she might have lost herself. At some point, she’s become the kind of person who, instead of letting the people around help her, shrieks at them like Elizabeth shrieks at the world. She feels scratchy, enclosed, exhausted. She wants to scream and rage and shout until _someone_ makes the horror that is the endless hours of her daughter just… stop.

Tony’s copping the brunt of it and it’s not fair, not at all, but she doesn’t know how to change that when every time she looks at him she can see the accusation in his eyes. The unspoken, _you’re messing this up for us. You’re terrible at this. Some mother you are_. Some part of her knows how horrible she’s being, how unfair, but at this point she’s hurting and she wants him to hurt as well so he can stop _judging_ her.

“Please, be quiet,” she hisses, pressing her face against the handle of the stroller desperately. Baoth clings to the top, his feathers puffed out into a ridiculous mass of copper and blue, his beak gaping open in the universal sign for, _I am distressed_. Elizabeth ignores them both, her skin red and clammy and shiny. Kate feels very little except tired when she looks at her in that moment.

There’s a scuff of a shoe beside her and she looks up, expecting the nurse, expecting James, expecting _anyone._

Tony is looking down at her, Fitz at his side, and he smiles tiredly. He looks better. He looks… okay. She’s envious of that. And horrified to realize her eyes are brimming with tears. “She has a fever,” she tries to explain, and starts to cry. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Some mother she’s turning out to be.

_Some mother, some mother,_ chants her exhausted brain.

“Okay,” Tony says, and reaches into the stroller. Picks her up and holds her close, murmuring gently. Elizabeth doesn’t stop crying, but she does soften slightly. “Okay. Let’s walk, little bug. Come on.” He paces the room with her in his arms; Fitz lays her head on Kate’s knees; and together they wait.

It feels… better.

 

* * *

 

“I’m sorry,” Kate says in the car, her cheek against the window as Tony drives them home. There’s the dim glow of the sun peeking over the horizon and the glass around her face is misting from her breath. “I’m struggling. I’m taking it out on you. It’s not your fault.”

Tony raps his fingers gently against the steering wheel, unable to resist glancing into the back seat at the carrier that holds their sleeping daughter. Finally sleeping. Christ. Never again. One DiNozzo Jr. Jr. is enough. Fitz is sprawled next to her, seemingly asleep, the only sign of her awareness the slight glint of streetlights in her dark eyes as they pass overhead.

“It’s okay,” he says again, and he feels like he’s been saying that a lot lately. “Let me go back to my place. I’ll take the bug. You get some sleep, I’ll bring her home tomorrow. We both need a rest. This wasn’t what we planned when we decided to have her, you know that.”

Kate hesitates, sitting upright and watching him. He can’t see her facial expression by the light in the car, not while focusing on the road, but he can almost feel her quiet contemplation.

“I’ll message James and get him to pack a bag for her,” she says finally, “if you’re sure.”

“Of course I am.”

He is.

 

* * *

 

Tony comes back to work first.

Gibbs thinks of that night on the curb outside his house, and he’s relieved to find that the Tony of now is a different man to the Tony of that night. This Tony is exuberant, excited, alive.

This Tony is a dad, and he’s not letting anyone forget it.

“Where’s DiNozzo?” Gibbs asks McGee, finding the man crouched in the back of the van and rifling through his bag. “Need him to talk to the victim’s wife.”

McGee blinks. He’s looking a hell of a lot more relaxed now than he has been the past two months; finally at ease with Tony back at the helm instead of the revolving door of temporary replacements they’d been dealing with while Tony was on leave. “He’s ah… distracted,” McGee says finally, and the dæmon on his shoulder rolls his eyes.

Gibbs finds Tony excitedly explaining how much Elizabeth prefers the original Bond movies to a blank-faced LEO, and tries not to let his amusement show in the swipe of his hand on the back of his subordinate’s head.

“Sorry Boss, won’t happen again,” Tony says immediately, turning and snapping to attention. Fitz grins doggedly, slinking around their legs.

It will.

 

* * *

 

Kate comes back to work eventually, and Tony is stunned by the difference it makes. Gone is the grouchy, reticent Kate of the past few months. Gone is the anger and the mood swings and the hair-trigger temper. Instead, she’s herself. They bicker, but there’s no venom in it. They get on each other’s nerves, but the irritation doesn’t linger. At home, she’s still touchy, still quick to jump to the defensive if Elizabeth is cranky or off her milk or out of sorts. Tony suspects that, somehow, he’s not the most insecure person in the room anymore. It’s an odd change. He wishes he had some way of telling her that she’s doing fine. They’re doing fine.

Mostly.

They’re on a stake-out and sitting in a comfortable silence broken only by the loud slurping of Tony’s Caf-pow straw scraping on the bottom of the cup, when Kate looks up and whistles softly. Tony follows her eye-line, finding a man on the end of it with an ass that Tony himself envies.

“Hey,” he complains, lowering the cup. “Right here and you know… sensitive. What’s he got that I don’t?”

“Abs, probably,” McGee chimes in from the backseat, looking up from his laptop. He’s smushed up against the door trying to avoid brushing against Fitz, and Tony considers telling Fitz to stretch out more just to get him back for _that_ comment. “He looks like he actually works out.”

“I work out!” Tony protests, lifting his shirt to glare at his stomach. It’s still flat… ish.

Shit.

Kate snorts a laugh and he catches her eye, trying to pout, but there’s something in the way that looks at him that pushes his newfound worries about his physique out of his mind. She’s looking at him like a partner. Like a friend. A close friend, yeah, but nothing more. There’s no _hunger_ in the way she looks at him anymore, not like there was before they’d shown each other their brittle sides.

Ah.

He’s only a little bit surprised to find he feels the same.

 

* * *

 

Kali eyes the steaks hungrily as Gibbs flips them, the loud sizzling of fat on the surface of the barbeque almost drowning out Tobias bitching about Diane.

“Told you not to marry her,” he says absently, flicking loose a chunk of seared fat and tossing it down to Kali. She catches it nimbly out of mid-air, nose twitching at the hot oil.

“Ah hell, Jethro, when are you gonna quit on that? Fine, what’s new with you then? New boat? New woman? New anything?”

Gibbs glances to the gate, which stays resolutely closed. Late again.

“DiNozzo’ll be here soon,” he says as an answer, and Tobias groans. “Bringing his kid.”

Silence. Gibbs manages to hold back a smirk.

“When did _that_ happen?” Tobias’s voice cracks, for once stunned, and it’s a warm feeling having shut him up for once. “Who’d be stupid enough to… ahhh, DiNutso.”

“Fornell. Boss.” The gate clicks behind Tony as he nudges it with his hip, his arms full of a squirming mass of purple and orange. Gibbs blinks, but the colours don’t fade. From within the mass, two brown eyes stare at him, outraged. And upside-down.

“Baby goes the other way up, DiNozzo,” Gibbs says, raising an eyebrow.

“Baby likes being this way,” Tony replies cheerily, flipping her back the right way despite this. “She kicks less. Now Bea, you see that scary balding man? That’s your Auntie Tobias. Kick him. Kick him as much as you like.”

“Do I dare ask which poor woman let you near her long enough for this to happen?” Tobias asks, looking from Gibbs to Tony and letting his face slip into a resigned expression. He holds his hands out, taking the garishly decorated child from Tony and examining her. Elizabeth smiles in response. “You sure you didn’t steal this? Kid’s too cute to be yours.”

Before he can answer, the gate clicks again and Abby arrives with Palmer at her heels, both toting beer and wide grins. Abby shrieks when she sees the baby in Tobias’ hands. “She’s wearing the outfit I got her!”

That explains a lot.

“Where’s Kate?” Gibbs asks as Elizabeth is passed to Abby and Palmer nervously tries to get out of holding her. Tony shrugs, running his fingers through his hair, face relaxed.

“Told her to have a day to herself. It’s been a week since I’ve taken Bea anyway, she’s missing her dad. She says I have much better taste in movies then her mom does.” His voice is light, cheerful.

Gibbs hasn’t had the guy tailing him for the last three years without that ringing some sort of alarm bell.

“Something you’re not telling me?” he asks, and Kali looks up, her sharp-tipped ears pointed firmly at them. From nearby, a shrieking laugh sounds out. Gibbs glances over and finds Palmer trying to hold the wildly kicking and giggling Elizabeth while Abby steadies them both. He contemplates suggesting they hold her upside-down, but that feels too much like giving into DiNozzo’s… DiNozzoness.

“We’re not… doing a thing anymore,” Tony says, and Gibbs takes what he can from that quiet announcement. “I mean, we obviously are because the kid and stuff, but we’re… not. We’re okay with it being like this. Really. There’s this lady just moved in up the hall from me and _hot_ , I’m talking smoking, like you wouldn’t believe. Anyway, turns out kids are a chick magnet…”

Gibbs tunes the rest out, but he smiles a little easier that day and refuses to wonder why.

 

* * *

 

Why? Why does Gibbs always always _always_ leave him with the shitty jobs. Like sitting here, stuck with the dumbest criminal this side of the Potomac, his stomach rumbling and no hope of rescue on the damn horizon. They could be _hours_ and the guy is annoying as shit.

Luckily, Tony can be annoying as well.

“So then, I was like, _hey boss, you know what would be funny? If this dumbass didn’t cover his face before walking in front of the camera,_ and so we checked, and there you were, your ugly mug, beaming back out at us. And boy, were we excited to see you! That must be nice, someone being excited to see you. I bet not many people are. You know why that is, squeaky?”

The perp groans, laying down in the back seat with his hands cuffed and an expression as though wishing he’d let them shoot him instead of surrendering. “Please stop,” he whines, his voice a nasal whimper that Tony is going to have fucking haunting him for the next week, no doubt. Not to mention the smell of him. Urgh. Fitz covers her nose with her paws, hunched over in the passenger seat.

“It’s because you’re not very nice. Not very nice at all. You know, we’re not actually after you; you’re just the stinky icing on the cake that is this investigation. Wrong place, wrong time, bucko. But if you want to give us information about the guy we’re really after, we can probably put in a good word for you.”

Murky blue eyes meet his as he glances at the man in the rear view mirror. The guy has a slim-snouted weasel dæmon sitting on his shoulder, bright and curious. It’s an oddly lively little thing for such a drab, miserable looking human. “You can get me off?” he asks hopefully, wiping his nose on the cushion of the seat. Ew. Great. Now Tony’s going to have to get the whole interior cleaned.

“No, did I say that? I did not say that, idiot. I said we can put in a good word for you. You’ll still be going where bad guys like you who rob gas stations and frighten old ladies into heart attacks go. But maybe you’ll be there a little less time than you deserve, got it? Peanut-head.”

He flips the visor down, examining his hair. Still fine. Remarkably so, considering the scuffle this guy had put up before Gibbs had gotten there. The magic of gel. He opens his mouth, checking his teeth, closes it again. Hums. Surely not long now?

A wet sounding sniff from the back. Tony ignores it. Another.

He contemplates shooting him. Self-defence. _He was driving me insane_. Fitz groans. “That your kid?” says the nasally voice, and Tony looks up. There’s a picture of Bea pinned wonkily to the underside of the visor, next to the mirror, Lex in her lap as a miniature Mort with frighteningly ice blue eyes.

“Yes,” he says curtly, snapping the visor back up. Fitz sits up straight and really does growl now, the suggestion of white fangs showing under her black lips.

The guy ignores her. “I got kids, you know. Got a couple. Names Jackie and Jason. What are they gonna do without a daddy?”

Probably exactly the same as they were doing now, Tony guessed. Guy didn’t seem the active fathering type.

Actually…

“You wanna know about my kid?” Tony says, turning and grinning smugly. The guy looks nervous. Good. “Well, so I was eating an apple one day and I catch her watching me and I was like, ‘oh you like this apple’ and she didn’t say anything because she’s four months old and I was like, ‘I bet you’d get this apple all goopy if I give it to you’ and she smiles at me and man, this kid, her smile…”

Three hours later Gibbs gets back and the guy almost cries with relief to see him.

Another job well done.

 

* * *

 

There’s a knock on the door one weekend, and Bea watches her solemnly from her stance by the couch, holding herself up with a white-knuckled grip on the cushion. As Kate moves towards the door, she hears the soft _twap_ of a diaper hitting the carpet. Lex giggles, the noise shrill, and there’s a flutter of wings. Baoth doesn’t call out, so she assumes limbs are all still attached and none of them have eaten anything they shouldn’t.

“Gibbs,” she remarks, opening the door and finding the man and his fox standing there, a box under his arm. His mouth twitches, almost a smile, as she lets him in. “This is a surprise.”

His eyes immediately find Bea as he steps in, and something in her chest twists at the way his expression softens. Bea babbles excitedly at the sight of him, peering over at Kali and clapping. Lex flickers, becoming a fluffy fox kit and almost falling over himself in his haste to bounce over and bat at the older fox’s tail.

“She’s energetic,” he says quietly, putting the box down and kneeling next to it. “Got some toys. Found them. No one else using ‘em.” She only wonders about why he has toys lying around the house for a second before it clicks.

Oh.

“Thank you,” she says as he pulls out a stuffed deer with a wide bow around its neck and places it on the floor. Bea crawls over, patting at it with a curious palm, looking uncertain. The coloured blocks that follow are much more enthusiastically received.

The stuffed fox that he falters over before adding to the pile is the most excitedly received yet, and immediately makes its way into her mouth: the Bea stamp of quality. Ten seconds after Kate retrieves it, it finds its way into Lex’s. Kate puts it on the cupboard nearby, not really wanting to see the soft fur ruined by over-curious dæmon teeth and claws.

“How are you, Kate?” Gibbs asks suddenly, and his usually clear eyes are hidden from her, shadowed almost. “You doing alright?”

“I’m good. Yeah, I’m good,” she says, and it’s the truth. Back at work, out of the house, she’s still herself. She didn’t stop being Kate when she became Elizabeth’s mom and Tony’s still there, even more so than she’d ever expected of him. It’s all… very good. “Tony’s happy. He’s weirdly delighted with his house suddenly becoming covered in baby gear. I mean, that’s a surprise, right? Who’d have thought he’d be so keen on being a dad?”

Keener than she was. Still is. She loves Bea, loves her fiercely, but… there’s so much more she wants to be other than a mom. As well as a mom. She can be them all still, right?

Gibbs reaches out and brushes the side of his hand against Kali; it’s a weird gesture, because he’s not like her or Tony or McGee. He never seeks comfort in the touch of his dæmon, or, if he does, she’s never seen him do it. “I’m not surprised,” he replies finally, and she smiles uneasily.

“Yeah well, you always knew him better than I ever did,” she says with a laugh. “Hell, Gibbs, sometimes I think he loves you more than he ever did me.”

And _fuck_ that was totally and completely the wrong fucking thing to say, and she feels the blood drain from her face at the horror of having said it. There’s a long, frozen moment where he stares at her with his shoulders stiff and his expression still, and she waits for the reprimand she knows is coming. Then Lex tries to copy the deer form, falls over with a shriek of terror, and Bea starts to cry. The moment breaks.

Gibbs just shrugs and doesn’t reply; they never mention it again.

But, after that, she does wonder.

 

* * *

 

Tony’s a pretty good cop, and he can put clues together. Some clues easier than others.

Like Gibbs bringing over a box of toys. Okay, yeah, easy enough. Gibbs likes Bea a lot. So Gibbs bought her toys. Except these are worn. Clean, but old. The box has ‘Gibbs’ scrawled on the side in unfamiliar handwriting. The slant is feminine. He could be wrong about that last bit, but he doesn’t think he is.

There’s a stuffed fox that came out of that box with soft red fur, a cuddly white-tipped tail and a paw with _Kelly Gibbs_ written on the bottom in thick black marker. He stares at that for a long time, and he wonders. And then he walks into Bea’s room, finding Kate singing softly to her along with the cowboy mobile that McGee had given them. Bea loves it. Tony loves it. Kate complains about it, but her knowing the words to the wordless tune suggests that McGee’s gift is a smash-hit. But, that’s not what he’s here about.

“Thought you said Kelly was a family name,” he says quietly, holding the fox up with a painful care that he doesn’t even take with Bea anymore. There’s movement in the crib as Lex raises his head at the sight of Tony and flickers from a fox to a pup again, tail wagging slowly. Above their head, cowboys endlessly chase their horses in a circle, spinning gently.

Kate looks at him and then she looks at the fox, and then she looks back again. She nods.

And his heart breaks just a little, because the thought of Bea not being there anymore is impossible, and the thought of _Gibbs_ suffering that impossibility almost shatters him.

“It is,” she says, and puts her hand on Bea’s sleeping form protectively, like by holding her there she can keep all harm from her. “Does that bother you?”

He doesn’t have to think about his answer. “No.”

 

* * *

 

Kate dates again. It’s a resounding disaster and she deals with that by going home to her bed in her empty house, alone. Except, once she’s there she’s wide awake and achingly conscious of Bea being at Tony’s; the empty crib across the hall.

“I’m never happy with what I’ve got when I’ve got it, am I?” she asks Baoth quietly, her words vanishing into the dark of her bedroom, and the kestrel chuckles.

“One failed date doesn’t make you a spinster, Kate,” he says, and she smiles.

There’s still time.

 

* * *

 

Tony dates again. It’s a resounding disaster and he deals with that by finding another bar; a seedier one with dimmer lighting and wilder women, and getting absolutely hammered. It’s been a while since he’s let himself get this drunk, and it’s delightfully familiar to feel the alcohol coursing through his veins and making everything smooth and easy.

Then, everything gets a little too smooth, and he has a moment to regret that it’s been a long time, because, apparently, he’s lost a little tolerance. He keeps his feet though. He dances with one woman with red hair and freckles, but when he leans in to brush his lips against her ear, she’s suddenly blonde with the faded remains of a sunburn on her nose. He gives up on that, makes his way back to the bar, doesn’t make it. Dances with Fitz because, fuck it, why not? He’s a single dad, he’s still young, and it’s interesting to feel the world tip with the beat of the music.

Until the world tips a little too much and he stumbles. Someone catches him, drags him upright. Someone else stumbles against Fitz and she yelps. He shivers at the resonations of that impact, almost wanting them to do it again.

Fuck, he needs to get laid. Needs to touch, needs to… something.

The hands that caught him slide on his hip, his waist, one catching his wrist. He turns his hand, deftly, pressing two fingers to the pulse on that wrist, feeling it skip and hammer. His own courses along, hungrily.

He stumbles again and, this time, the person leads him out and away from the dance floor. Fitz follows numbly; there’s a dæmon at her side, something small and slender that twines around her like a river around a partially submerged rock, slowly wearing away at her. Words break through, and they’re outside, when did that happen? The air is cool and brisk and he fills his lungs, feels the world steady. Leans back against a warm, solid weight that holds him up, laughs, talks again.

“Bit too much to drink?” says the voice that’s deliciously husky, and Tony blinks and looks down to find Fitz with her head bowed and an otter running nimble paws over her silky ears, exploring. There’s a hot pulse of desire in his stomach that travels swiftly to his dick, and he only feels a short burst of dismay when he turns and finds the owner of that voice and those hands and that otter.

“Maybe a little,” Tony says, and for once Fitz is quiet, almost humming with contentment under the otter’s touch. The man holding him upright smiles, crookedly and with a face that looks like he smiles a lot. His hair is dark. A small part of Tony whines at that, wishing that it wasn’t dark. Maybe that his eyes were lighter as well. Smiles less, is silent more. Shorter, stockier, anything, just… different. But, for all of that, he still presses his mouth against the other man’s and hooks a finger inside the waistband of his jeans and lets what happens happen.

They don’t ask each other’s names; that’s fine, because, in the end, neither of them use the right ones anyway.


	13. Contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony is a man made of almosts, and Kate’s pretty sure she’s lost at least ten years of her goddamn life watching him use all those almosts up. One day, he’s going to run out of near-misses, and the thought chills her.

Today, it’s the Jeffrey White case and DiNozzo going dark for over twenty-six hours. She spends every one of them imagining how she’ll face the inevitable _‘What was Daddy like?’_ questions in her future if they don’t find him.

But they do, of course, because Gibbs isn’t a man who fails easily or happily.

Tony’s sitting in the back of the work truck with his ass on the edge and his long legs thrown out uncaringly in front of him; for a short time, he’s forgetting to be careful or polished. There’s dirt on his pants, grease on his shoes, and blood on his shirt. There’s blood on Fitz too, on her muzzle and her chest, but that doesn’t stop her from wagging her tail along with the soft hum of the truck’s motor.

Gibbs is with the PD, clearing the car with White’s body inside; McGee is floating around being precise and neurotic. Kate finds herself, just for a second, with nothing left to do but face the father of her daughter; looking him in the eyes and reaffirming that, yes, he is alive, and those questions can be stayed for another lifetime.

“You look worried, Kate,” he says, looking up and seeing her with a grin that’s a touch too toothy to be real. “Aww. And here, I thought you didn’t care.” She punches him, but it turns into a touch as she notes blood on his neck and wipes it away. Touching him feels normal, real. Her heart is hammering, but only because she’s now trapped by the thought of him being gone, and it won’t leave her alone.

She’s afraid of being alone, she realizes, even with Baoth on her shoulder.

“You idiot,” she says, laughing sharply. His smile relaxes at the laugh, turning soft. Gentle. He knows he scared her, and he’s sorry. She’s already forgiven him. “So, what, you annoy the shit outta me. Doesn’t mean I don’t care.” He stands, unfolding himself stiffly and stretching around her like he’s remembering how to be relaxed, shedding tension like Fitz does a coat of water. The hug is quick, warm, and tight, and he stinks of sweat and stale water. She still treasures it.

He’s gotten blood on her shirt. Dick.

“Are we having hugs?” McGee says, appearing behind them and blinking quickly. “That’s nice. Count me out though. I don’t… hug.”

Tony lunges like a cat after a mouse, and McGee doesn’t have a chance to escape before he’s wrapped in a rough headlock, Tony scraping his knuckles across the man’s scalp with a roughness that has Kate suddenly nostalgic about her brothers. She winces in sympathy as McGee wails, earning them all startled looks from the PD milling about.

Gibbs looms behind them, his face deadpan.

Kate decides she’s probably needed elsewhere; the sound of two heads meeting together with a dull _clonk_ echoing after her as she makes her escape.

 

* * *

 

“Ah, so Anthony has had his monthly near-death experience?” Ducky has Palmer stretched out on the autopsy table. With his wide green eyes staring at the roof, if it wasn’t the shift of Palmer’s chest under his scrubs, he could almost be one of the usual inhabitants of the table. “What was it this time? I do believe there is a pool going. A kind of ‘How will Anthony almost die this time’ bingo. Isn’t that correct, Mr. Palmer?”

“Got twenty bucks on the flu,” Palmer says, craning his neck back to peer at Gibbs in the doorway. “You know, superbugs are no joke. We’re losing the fight against antibiotic resistant bacteria.”

Of course, the usual inhabitants didn’t usually talk back to Ducky. They also didn’t usually have their dæmons flopped over their feet like a lively grey rug, tail waving in the air where her hindquarters hung awkwardly over the edge.

“Ducky?” Gibbs says, turning the word into a question. Ducky doesn’t answer, just shifts slightly and gestures grandly to Palmer’s hand with the tweezers he’s holding delicately between two fingers.

“Mr. Palmer had a little fall,” Ducky says with a grin that’s almost amused. “I’m afraid that the space he decided to fall into was already occupied.” There’s a low grumble from under Ducky’s desk, and Gibbs can see the slightest hint of Netta’s rear end as she hunches further into the enclosed space.

“Ow,” Palmer and his dæmon whimper at the same time as Ducky plucks a quill out of the meaty part of his thumb with a careful flick that Gibbs assumes the man has practised endlessly over the years. “Was it flu?” He looks hopeful, even through the watering of his eyes caused by the ministrations to his hand. “Maybe a sneeze? A sniffle?”

“Serial killer,” Gibbs says, turning to leave and rolling his eyes at Palmer’s miserable _oh_. Only he could possibly find the idea of a serial killer less interesting than a cold.

“Oh well, maybe next time,” Ducky says cheerfully, plucking another quill out and placing it into a neat pile in a blood-smeared platter by his wrist. “Do wish Anthony a happy birthday for me. I believe that was last week, but better late than never my old uncle used to say. Actually, what he used to say was ‘better than never is late’, which has an entirely different meaning tracing back to Chaucer…” Gibbs leaves with his mind buzzing, the _whush_ of the door sealing behind him cutting off Ducky’s tale.

He hadn’t even realized it was DiNozzo’s birthday. He hadn’t shown up, drunk or otherwise.

Gibbs realizes with a sharp pang of pride that maybe the casual confidence that had settled onto Tony’s shoulders since the birth of his daughter wasn’t pretence at all.

Pride, and maybe a touch of sadness. It’s always strange to realize you’re not needed anymore.

 

* * *

 

“Six months, huh?” Tony says seriously to her, crouched down and peering into her sharp eyes. She peers back, blinking sleepily. He considers asking her kindly to stop growing before she hits the talking stage. If she’s anything like him, she’ll never shut up.

If she’s anything like Kate, she’ll never shut up and she’ll be far too sharp for his liking.

“Ba,” she says, and sneezes wetly, spraying Tony with spit, and then laughing uproariously.

“Thanks, kid.” Wiping his face with the back of his hand, he smears it on the front of her onesie, smirking as she flails her chubby legs indignantly. Lex puppy-grumbles, rolling onto his belly and watching the two of them, his claws catching on the carpet of Kate’s living room. Just in time, Tony pulls his hand back before the dæmon’s sharp puppy teeth can catch his fingers. “Hey! Mutt. Fitz, control your fleabag.”

“Don’t call Lex a mutt,” Kate says, poking her head into the room and frowning down at them. “Are you taking her tonight? We didn’t discuss that.”

He picks their kid up, standing her in front of him and pouting over the top of her wavy hair. She stamps her feet, helping in her own undeveloped kind of way. He decides maybe he’ll wait to tell her to stop growing until after she’s learned to support her own weight. There’s another sharp puppy growl from behind him, and he also decides to wait until her dæmon is a little less bitey.

“But look at this face,” he says, putting a whine into his tone that he knows Kate hates. “Is this the face of someone who wants to spend tonight watching movies alone? This face is far too cute to be alone all night.” He hesitates for a second, waiting for the shift of Kate’s mouth into a pained upward curve that means behind him, Fitz is adding her sad eyes to the mix. “And the kid too, she’s kinda cute, maybe.”

Baoth sighs heavily, ruffling his feathers. There’s milk on Kate’s shoulder, by the tip of his talon. Neither of them seem to have noticed it. “Thought you were going to Gibbs’ tonight,” Kate asks, leaning against the doorframe and reaching up her hand without thinking to touch her dæmon. She’s in a baggy pair of slacks he’s never seen before, her shirt grey and worn thin from over washing. He tries to be subtle about his eyes tracing the figure revealed under the threadbare cotton; the flat plane to her stomach that he knows she worked her ass off to regain, even with the slight swell indicating the child she’d carried. Still barely visible if one knows it’s there, as well as the shadowed suggestion of her nipple breaking the line of her breasts. He considers walking over there and sliding and hand up her shirt, running his thumb over that soft shape and feeling it harden, and he also considers that that may complicate things.

Almost certainly, but it is tempting.

“I am,” he says, and now he’s uncomfortably conscious of a dull _want_ of a human body by his, and aware it’s not something he’s probably going to have a chance to rectify anytime soon. “Steak and game night. He won’t mind. He likes the bug more than he likes me, anyway. We’ll teach her how to build boats.” He watches her deliberate, her eyes tracing their daughter in his arms, and almost flickering towards the darkened hall. He knows that expression.

Yeah. He knows loneliness too.

“What if we get called into work?” she asks, reaching for an excuse to keep her daughter close.

“I’ll drop her at your brother’s. He’s taking her this week while the day-care is closed anyway.”

She pauses, thinking. He’s not worried. She hates being alone, but she hates the idea that she’s pushing him away from his daughter more. She won’t discourage this. The kettle wails, sharp tinny whistling breaking the silence, and she ducks away. He pulls his cell out, enacting plan B.

**To: Abby**

**Oi. Wanna have a girl night?**

The reply is almost instant. Does the woman _sit_ on her phone? **O Tony. U knw yr 2 much man 4 a girls night.**

**To: Abby**

**Of course. But Kate is all woman, trust me.**

**Abby**

**Gt it boss.**

Tony lifts Bea in the air triumphantly as he hears Kate’s phone begin to chatter in the kitchen. “Victory!” he whispers quietly to her, and she cackles.

 

* * *

 

Tony’s teetering on the edge of one too many, but Gibbs knows that one too few is enough for the man to refuse to drive with his daughter in the car, so it’s already a given that the two of them are staying the night. Kate has a porta-cot and a well-stocked diaper bag, as fastidiously perfectionist about packing for her child as she is about her entering her reports. When Bea begins to yawn and mumble grumpily, Gibbs offers to put her to bed in the room that’s Tony’s in everything but name.

“Come on girlie,” he murmurs to her, scooping her out of her dad’s arms. She wriggles, kicks, and goes limp; tucking her head against his shoulder and closing her eyes, small fingers pinching the skin of his bicep as she grips monkey-like to him. Then her hand relaxes, absolute trust.

Tony watches him almost knowingly as his heart twists in his chest at the reminder. The dæmons press their heads together, conferring, and to Gibbs’ shock it’s not Fitz who scoops up the sleepy bundle of puppy, today shaggy and white, but Kali. Her light eyes watch him, waiting for his guidance, and she follows placidly as they pace up the stairs.

“Gotta sing to her to get her to sleep or she’ll bitch,” Tony calls after him, and he can hear him smacking the flat of his hand against the TV to get a better reception on the game.

The hall is dark and quiet and, for a moment, it’s an age ago and the child in his arms is slender and red-haired. He pauses, his foot grating on the carpeting, and tightens his arms. Her breathing shifts, babbling almost under her breath, and her hair is dark. Dark, not red, and her eyes are brown instead of blue.

“Get it together,” he mutters to himself, and Kali whines inquiringly around a mouthful of puppy. “Come on, girl. We’ll just get you down. You really wanna hear an old man sing?”

“Awoo,” huffs Lex, and Kali almost drops him as he shifts, becoming heavier, before changing again and curling delicate grey paws to a white chest. It’s hard to tell in the gloom of the hall, but Gibbs thinks he might be some kind of terrier. “Da?” he asks, dark eyes glinting, and Gibbs doesn’t answer.

When he lays her down, Lex is white once more, his former form forever a mystery. Bea’s face scrunches as she lets go of his neck, and he knows exactly how she feels.

He’s never been good at letting go either.

He hums a song he hasn’t sung since it was a different child, a different time, and he tries not to let it hurt.

 

* * *

 

“I got you a present,” Abby says, her first words as soon as Kate swings open her front door and finds her standing there in flannel pyjamas with patterned with giggling bats. Mort bounces by her feet, wearing his own miniature version of his human’s clothes, his arms wrapped around an awkwardly shaped paper bag, “but you have to promise not to show _him_.”

“Him?” Kate asks warily, stepping aside to let the two in. Baoth makes a soft hum of horror in her ear at the sight of Mort’s outfit. Kate wonders whether the damage he’d cause to her if she tried to dress him up is worth how goddamn fucking cute Mort looks right now. “I’m not hiding something from Gibbs. He’ll smell it on me.”

“Not from Gibbs.” Abby lays a pack of beer on the counter with a handful of DVDs and tosses her keys on top of the plastic covers with a carelessness that has Kate flinching, imagining Tony’s expression if he saw someone treating precious movies with such casual disregard. Mort holds the bag up, allowing Kate to carefully take it and tip the contents onto the counter.

Photos. Dozens of photos, of all ages and sizes. And the inhabitant… short and dorky and with the gangliest shepherd dæmon Kate’s ever seen by his side.

“Oh my god,” Kate says gleefully, picking up a picture of a woeful looking Tony in flared jeans. “This. Is. Fantastic.”

“I love the internet,” Abby agrees, cracking open a beer. “You should see the ones I found on McGee. How much do you reckon it will cost to get life-sized cut-outs?”

 

* * *

 

He tells himself it’s the lingering heat of the day as he opens another drink. He tells himself it’s not the memory of tiny arms wrapped trustingly around his neck. He tells himself it’s not a crushing loneliness with no respite.

He’s lying.

Tony’s drinking too, drinking heavily enough, except for once Gibbs can tell that it’s not the man’s demons pushing him onto the next bottle, but instead Gibbs’. Tony has always always followed Gibbs’ lead, even unconsciously, and the night begins to slip into the early hours and they’re still awake, still together, pushing each other’s moods almost to morose. It’s nothing new for Gibbs at this time of the night, but Tony’s eyes are fixed on him even as the man rambles from topic to topic. The dæmons are still and sleepy, have been for hours, cuddled together in a ball of black and tan on the rug.

“Then there was Sandra, she was a spitfire.” Tony is slurring, onto the fourth tale in the epic saga of ‘woman DiNozzo could have married but didn’t because of minor flaws’. Gibbs has heard them all before. He listens anyway, because to do otherwise would be to talk, and he’s never been a sharing kind of drunk. “Her nose though. Just ever so—like so slightly you can barely notice—off-centre. And once I noticed, man, I couldn’t _not_ notice. She also had a gambling habit, but I could have dealt with that if it wasn’t for her nose.”

“Can it on the women talk,” Gibbs mutters under his breath, sinking back into the couch and considering turning the TV back on. Even infomercials would be better than hearing about the 47th potential Mrs. DiNozzo. “Got three ex-wives. Don’t need to relive it.”

Tony pauses, tilting his head as though he’d heard a sound from upstairs. He hadn’t. Gibbs is listening too, just as intently. “I coulda’ married Kate,” he says suddenly, and his expression is coolly intent like it hasn’t been all night. Gibbs watches him, unsettled, not wanting to know where this conversation is going but unable to walk away. “I mean… I could have. I could have loved her properly, like I should have. But she’s too smart for that. And you know… the fighting was kinda a turn on at the beginning, but it stopped being funny when Bea got there to see it.”

Gibbs says nothing. He closes his eyes. He could sleep right here, erase this conversation from his mind. He’s used to being lonely. He doesn’t like to face it in others.

“You know how I knew I didn’t love her?” Tony continues. He gets up, paces the room. Picks up a book, flips it open with his eyes not following the pages. Gibbs waits. He puts the book down, in the wrong damn place, paces some more. Flops on the couch next to Gibbs heavily enough that Gibbs’ ass leaves the cushions, just for a second. He huffs in irritation and Tony turns. Leans against the backrest with his legs thrown out wide, one brushing across Gibbs’ own. He lets it be. He doesn’t move.

“I know what you’re thinking in that grey old head of yours. You’re thinking _‘DiNozzo? In love? Couldn’t happen!’_ Hello commitment issues, right? Yeah, well, fuck. I loved someone once, back in college. Loved them so much it hurt you, you know? That kinda love that burns and pisses everyone else off because you just can’t stop talking about them and thinking about them and wanting them.”

Gibbs doesn’t answer and he doesn’t nod, but he does know.

“I didn’t love Kate like that, not in the mad way. Though I guess I’ll never know because it’s not like my first love even got a chance to be… anything. I don’t get what I want, not like that.”

“You tell her how you feel?” Gibbs asks, even though he’d decided to stay out of this.

Tony looks at him. The light is dim enough that his eyes are shadowed. He’s almost frozen, tentative, waiting for something. Gibbs can see stubble on his cheeks, a nick on his throat where the razor had stuttered unevenly. He can see red in the whites of his eyes. He can smell his breath, his sweat, the faintest hint of milk and baby.

He’s really fucking close.

“Nah,” he says quietly. He blinks and his eyelashes cast half-moon shadows on his skin. Gibbs swallows. “He knew. But who wants to be a gay cop in the eighties? Fitz didn’t like it anyway.”

And Gibbs doesn’t answer, because he’s reeling at that. And then he doesn’t answer, because there’s a hand on his knee and Tony is falling—no, leaning—across him. And then he doesn’t answer, because their lips are tucked together and Tony tastes like _Tony_ and he doesn’t want it to end.

But it does.

 

* * *

 

Tony wakes up and he’s not alone in the bed. That’s nothing new. There’s a man next to him. That’s pretty new, and he tenses. Then it clicks.

Oh _shit_.

He sits up cautiously, ignoring the wobbly sensation of still being drunk. Gibbs looks asleep, but Kali and Fitz are both leaning with their chins on the side of the bed, and they’re fucking staring like they’re hungry and he’s a hock of ham.

“Interesting,” says Fitz, flicking one ear around and down.

“Very,” agrees Kali, and closes her eyes.

“Panic later, DiNozzo,” Gibbs grumbles, and it’s still dark, his daughter is still quiet, and Tony decides the smartest thing to do right now is just… go back to sleep. Which is what he’s been doing apparently. In bed with his boss. Just… sleeping. He knows they’ve just been sleeping, they’re both still in their clothes. Their ruffled, hopelessly creased up clothes. He closes his eyes. This is now a problem for future DiNozzo.

When he lies back down, straight-backed and staring at the roof, almost too nervous to move in case he brushes against the other man, Gibbs reaches a hand back and brushes two fingers against his palm. And then lets them rest there, almost a caress.

He falls asleep counting the minutes that that touch lingers.

 

* * *

 

Kate wakes up with a fuzzy head and a goddamn cold. She’s haunted by Palmer’s voice chanting ‘antibiotic resistant bacteria are the greatest threat we’ll face in the 21st century’ as she reluctantly reaches for her phone. Her nose is clogged, her breathing whistling, and a small furnace has quietly begun production in her chest.

**To: DiNozzo**

**Don’t bring B home. I’m sick. Drop her at James on Mon plz.**

Damn. Damn damn damn _damn_. The last thing she needs is a sick baby on top of this. Hopefully, it’s just a twenty-four-hour thing. Tony will never let her live it down if she gets sick on the job. She lowers her head and falls back asleep, and doesn’t even wake up to the sound of construction on the street below or her phone buzzing with a reply.

 

* * *

 

Tony is determinedly not thinking about what happened Saturday night. He is absolutely not thinking about, he’s absolutely not talking about it, and if Fitz would just stop looking so damn happy about it, he could just forget it ever happened. Unfortunately, she’s picked the worst possible time to be chipper.

“I like him,” she says as he shaves, hovering in the door to the bathroom with one eye on Bea in the playpen, trying to feed Lex a coloured block. “You like him. What’s the problem?”

“Still straight!” Tony snaps as the razor nicks _again_ at his throat, and slams the door shut on her. “Still straight,” he tells the pale reflection peering back at him with blood staining the dripping cream on his chin pink.

“Kali says Gibbs’ll never admit it, but he likes it too,” Fitz continues as Tony spoons puke-green mush into his daughter’s mouth. He’s doing a pretty good job of getting most of it in as well. There’s only a little bit on her face. And in her hair. And on her… toes.

“Shut up,” he says, flicking green on the dog’s nose. Lex jumps up onto his hind legs, licking the green off her muzzle as she obediently lowers it for him. “Fitz is being silly, Lex. Tell her to shh.”

“Aroo,” the puppy says, sneezing pea-scented green. And then coughing, wetly. Ew. Babies are gross.

“Arroo,” Bea says, and smacks her palm into the bowl, flipping it onto his lap. It’s a mess, but at least Fitz is quiet while they deal with it.

“Why should we have to be lonely because humans are stupid?” she complains as Tony unbuckles the carrier and lifts Bea out of the car out the front of Kate’s brother’s. He ignores her because he really doesn’t have a good answer for that.

“Picking her up, or is Kate better?” James asks curtly, and what’s up this guy’s ass? He’s hated Tony since day dot, and Tony’s not in the mood for this particular Todd’s snarky bitchiness.

“Kate’s still grosser than usual, so I get the joy. Always my pleasure. Looking forward to it,” Tony says, voice sugared sweetness, and brushes his lips over his daughter’s hair. “Have fun, bug. See you tonight.”

He doesn’t.

 

* * *

 

The ride to the third floor has never felt so long. Not when he rode up with Morrow ranting about budgets, not the first time he rode up with Kate after she’d blown up at him over DiNozzo’s behaviour on a case, not even when he’d had to catch a ride up with his ex-wife. Fitz is lolling about, calm as can be, but Tony’s pressed himself against the wall as far as he can possibly get without embedding himself in the wall. The bar must be digging into his ass; Gibbs hopes it hurts because the man looks honestly ridiculous.

“Problem, DiNozzo?” he asks, and Tony shakes his head adamantly. They ride the rest of the way in silence, and Gibbs wonders if waking up next to him was worth this.

 

* * *

 

There’s a manic kind of energy in the bullpen that’s usually only confined to one desk, but today even Gibbs seems infected with it. He’s twitchy, almost jumpy, and glares twice as hard at Kate when she walks in the door. She glares back, and rubs a tissue gingerly over her already red-raw nose, eyes watering miserably. She’s hoping for a quiet day. She’s hoping to finish her paperwork early, go home, and crawl into bed. She just wants to sleep. Instead, Tony opens a letter that she should have opened and slams them straight into another almost.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs can’t get the panicked rabbit-in-headlights stare that DiNozzo hit him with in the elevator out of his mind. That lasts right until Tony rips open an envelope that should have been safe.

There’s white on his shirt, his hands, his desk. There’s a suggestion of greying on Fitz’s stunned muzzle, even as Tony rips the lid off a bottle of water and dumps the contents on her head. There’s white powder everywhere, and, even as Gibbs moves into the practised actions of the decontamination procedure, his gaze is locked on the delicate traces of powder clinging to the skin of Tony’s lips.

They’re quick. They’re trained to be.

Not quick enough.


	14. Plague

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony is silent in the squad-room. Tony is silent in the showers. Tony says one last thing before he leaves, but he doesn’t use his mouth to do so.

“We’re not going to leave you alone,” Fitz says loudly to Baoth, rearing up on her hind paws and splaying them on the autopsy table so she can look both Kate and her dæmon in the eyes. “We’re fine.”

Kate is silent.

The last thing Gibbs sees is his pale face peeking out from inside the biohazard suit they’ve outfitted him with as he leaves without a word. Kate follows. She has a cough. A sneeze. A cold. Nothing serious. Nothing that leaves Bea without either of her parents.

“You should have given the letter to me, McGee,” he says, and he’s proud that the fear he’s feeling doesn’t show in his voice.

“How would that make this any better?” Kali snaps, her hackles bristling, and McGee looks terrified.

She’s wrong.

Anything is better than this.

 

* * *

 

The blue lights make Fitz a shapeless mass of black and blacker, her tan underbelly and paws barely visible from where she shivers by Tony’s bed with all the fear he’s refusing to show. Baoth is huddled on her somewhere, lost in the swirl of dark fur.

“I fucked up,” Tony says suddenly, the first thing he’s said since opening _that_ letter.

“No fucking shit,” she says, because he really, really did. And now they’re here and Bea… “Someone has to call James. Can we call? Do we have phone rights?”

The intercom crackles. “You’re not in prison, Kate,” Dr. Pitt says with a chuckle. “I’ll arrange something. Your husband?”

Kate is silent for a moment. She can’t dwell too much on what’s happening here; even less on what _could_ be happening here. “My brother… he has my daughter.” There’s a beat. Tony is a blue-tinged statue, watching nothing and everything all at once. “ _Our_ daughter.”

Dr. Pitt doesn’t answer straight away. Kate doesn’t look through the clear glass to see what he’s doing. She doesn’t need to see the pity on his face, or the matching expression the glossy black rat on his shoulder is wearing. “I’ll get you that phone,” he says finally, and there’s a hidden layer to his voice now. “We’re going to be doing our best to get you home to her. Both of you.”

And he leaves them alone with just Emma and their regrets.

“When she asks about me, you tell her I went down fighting,” Tony says, and that grin is back on his face. The one he’d shed some time ago, when Bea was just a possibility. The one that’s so fake she can practically taste the mould it came in. She’d thought he was past the falsity of it. “Like _Top Gun_. Tom Skerritt tells Tom Cruise about his dad. Tell her I ‘saved three planes before I bought it.’ Make me badass.”

“You’re not buying anything, idiot,” she says. Pitt is back with the phone, placing it into the airlock and watching them with black eyes under the blue lights. They make everything unreal. Reality isn’t lit like this. She’s almost thankful. “You said you’re not going anywhere. Neither of us are. Stop panicking.”

He’s scared. And him being scared is terrifying. She picks up the phone when the door beeps to tell her she can open it. Air whistles as she reaches through, chilled and medical tasting in the back of her throat.

“Kate, come on. Me? Afraid? Have you ever seen me afraid?”

She’s saved from answering by the click of the line and James’ panicked voice. “Kate? Kate, what the fuck is going on? I saw the news…”

Fitz chooses that moment to cough.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs looks around, and Ducky is there. “Busy, Duck,” he grunts, turning back and glaring at the computer screen. He’s searching for… something. Hell if he knows what. Tony normally does this bit. McGee even. Both are busy.

McGee is busy. Tony is…

Fine.

“Jethro,” Ducky says quietly, and there’s a cell phone in his hand. Netta rumbles and moves towards Kali, already consoling. Kali doesn’t wait to be consoled. Kali doesn’t deal well with waiting to be consoled, not after Shannon and Kelly and the man who’d delivered the news with a hawk dæmon with cruel eyes and a soft voice.

“Positive?” Gibbs doesn’t really need an answer, because of course it is. Only Tony could come to work and catch the goddamn _plague_.

“Only Tony’s.”

It only makes it slightly better. Slightly. One of Bea’s parents will still be going home to them, no matter how bad this turns.

When it turns.

“Lunch with their descendants, dinner with their ancestors, right Duck?” he says, and that’s cruel, that’s so damn cruel he’d head-slap DiNozzo into the next century if it had been him who’d said it, but the words slip out like he’s trying to make Ducky hurt like he is. Will be.

He’s not hurt yet, they can fix this. He owes his goddaughter and his friend that much.

A memory of Tony’s lips, whiskey-damp and soft as sin, haunts him. He pushes it away quickly. Kali snarls.

“He can survive this,” Ducky says calmly. “He’s survived worse.”

“Yeah well. Maybe this time Palmer finally gets to collect.”

If Ducky leaves after that, Gibbs doesn’t hear him.

 

* * *

 

Kate’s getting ready to leave. Tony’s starting to feel sick, and he’s probably only imagining _some_ of it. He doesn’t really know why he says the next thing he does, except maybe he wants someone to know just in case he never gets a chance to repeat the experience. As though if he tells her and then dies here, because that’s seeming increasingly likely, the memory won’t be halved for Gibbs just because Tony isn’t around to share it anymore.

“I kissed Gibbs,” he says suddenly, and the words drop like lead into his stomach and stay there. He coughs. Fitz whines. “This is my Rosebud moment, Kate. Appreciate it. No twist though. Gibbs isn’t my sled. I mean Gibbs, _the_ Gibbs. He tastes like sawdust.”

Kate stares at him. It’s impossible to tell her expression with the light casting her face into eerie shadows. His throat tightens. Burns. He coughs again. He can’t stop, can’t breathe. One cough rolls into another and when they finally end, he tastes copper.

Kate’s still watching him. He wants her to leave. It’s only going to get worse from here. If she watches him die from this, that’s what she’ll think of when Bea grows up and quotes a movie or says something stupid or does something charming. Shit, he can’t have that be his legacy. He wants to be more than what’s going to finally kill him.

“It’s the bug’s bedtime,” he says, and she blinks. “Give her a kiss from me. Tell her I’ll be home soon enough.”

He’s lived as a liar, might as well die as one.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs is working. Abby is working. Ducky is working. McGee is working. She doesn’t want to be alone. She can’t deal with James right now. Not when he looks at her and doesn’t understand anything about what she’s feeling. She takes Bea home, alone, and almost slams his hand in the car door when he tries to stop her. They won’t let her back in the office. They want her home. They want her with Bea while she _recovers_. Recovers from what? A cold? She’s fine. She’s just peachy. It’s Tony who…

No. She knows their game. It wasn’t Gibbs who’d benched her; it was Morrow. Because Gibbs doesn’t believe that Tony would betray him by dying, and Morrow does. Morrow sent her home because any moment now her cell might ring with its tinny whine, shattering her resolve and her nerves with the stupid goddamn song Tony changed it to last week that she hasn’t gotten around to changing back yet. She’s not sure if there’s a sick kind of DiNozzoness to having the phone call telling her he’s dead being preceded by _Baby Got Back_ , but she is sure that he’d appreciate it. Maybe she’ll play it at his funeral.

_Shut up, Kate._

“Elizabeth is crying,” Baoth says, and suddenly the car is filled with the shrieks of the infant and her dæmon in the backseat. She has no idea how she hadn’t noticed. Everyone around them has. The old lady from up the hall sneers at Kate as she passes the car that Kate doesn’t remember parking. Kate sneers back. Old bag. She should have let DiNozzo ding-dong-ditch her that time when he’d been drinking and volunteered to do so.

She unbuckles her hot, ill-tempered daughter and carries her, still screaming, upstairs. Lex follows; first a flop-eared Shepherd puppy that Kate can’t look at; now a spitting cat with over-sized paws; now a parrot that _shrieks_ loud enough to make Kate’s ears ring. A wolf cub, snapping. A foal standing with its back hunched and teeth bared. It’s a shockingly impressive array of dæmons for a child so damn young, and all of them enraged. Baoth is useless, too small, too fragile, too scared of losing everything. Kate can’t grab him because if she does while these emotions are breaking her, Bea will feel every last one of them through the touch. She can’t do that to her daughter. Their daughter.

Up the stairs. Ignore the looks. Ignore the whispers. Ignore the tears. Baby on hip, unlock the door. Lock the door. Living room. Sit on the floor with the crying baby on her lap, holding her close, and Kate does the one thing she can think to do.

She joins in.

Oh, how Tony would laugh to see this.

 

* * *

 

He’s fine, until he’s not.

That’s a lie, actually. Another one. Ha ha. It’s funny, except nothing is funny when his body begins to burn from the inside out and every breath is shorter than the last and all the more precious for it. He’s alone except for Emma and Brad (and what kind of a name is that?) and Fitz and that’s something else that sucks about this. He has a list now. A list of things that suck about dying.

  1. No more movies. There’s no Blockbuster in heaven he’s pretty sure. There was no ‘and on the eighth day, God gave the angels three dollar DVD rentals.’ Maybe the other way down, but all the disks are scratched and just endlessly play the THX Deep Note on repeat. He’ll spend his afterlife being haunted by the building _neerraaooowwuuumm_ with no relief. He should have gone to church.
  2. No Gibbs. No Kate to tease, no probie to haze, no Abby to hug, but, most of all, no Gibbs. No head-slaps or gruff almost-compliments or steak-and-game nights. Well, Gibbs will have them still, once he replaces Tony. But Tony won’t.
  3. It’s a Monday. It’s a damn Monday and he’s gonna miss out on All-you-can-eat Thursday at the burger joint near Kate’s place. He hasn’t missed one since they opened. Who will give the corner booth the love it deserves now if him and Fitz aren’t there to fill it?
  4. Fitz dies too. She’ll be here until he’s not anymore, and then she’ll be Dust. They won’t even bury her. She’ll scatter to the air like she’s nothing but a palmful of flour dropped by careless hands. Where’s the fairness in that?
  5. Elizabeth. Everything about Elizabeth. He can’t. That hurts. Hurts more than anything. If he survives this, he needs to do better. Bea deserves a dad.
  6. No Gibbs.



He’s fine, until he’s not. They’re dying together.

 

* * *

 

He goes home on his way to the hospital to see Tony. Kate’s home safe. The bitch that did this is behind bars, for now. Ducky says Tony’s still fighting. He can spare a moment to go home, get his head together, stop obsessing. At least, that’s what he tells himself he’s doing, but in the end maybe it’s his gut leading him there.

Kali stops in the hall, her dark eyes points of reflection in the dim light from the microwave glinting in the kitchen, and she growls. “Someone’s been here, Leroy. I smell… snake.”

He finds it on his pillow. Not the couch. The man hasn’t been watching him _that_ closely. Or maybe he has. His handwriting is what Ducky would call ‘beautiful’. Precise, curled at the corners, and dangerously delicate.

_I hope Anthony recovers. I despise my father, but I would wish for no child to grow up without a parent. Give the lovely Elizabeth a kiss from me. Or perhaps I shall do so when I see her next._

And he hasn’t signed it, but Gibbs doesn’t need him to.

“ _Ari_ ,” snarls Kali.

 

* * *

 

There’s a knock at her door. She ignores it. The room is dark, Baoth is silent, and Bea’s sobs have turned to hiccups that rock her little body. Lex is quiet, finally, a fluffy grey blob on the speckled carpet that Kate can’t see in the gloom to identify. There’s another knock. _No_. She looks at her phone; no missed calls. Twenty-seven texts. All Abby.

The knock once more. _Maybe_.

She gets up, shifts Bea in her arms when she complains with a loud, _‘Ma!’_ , and opens the door.

“Are you okay?” McGee asks, Chitta a muted cream on his shoulder.

“No,” she says honestly, and lets him in. Her face is hot and probably blotchy and red; she still stinks of hospital; she knows he can tell she’s been crying. “Is…?”

“They caught her. The one who sent it. She has a brain tumour… there’s… it’s complicated. I thought someone should check on you.”

Because Gibbs hasn’t. Gibbs is probably at the hospital already if they’ve solved it. At Tony’s side. She thinks of Tony’s confession and feels nothing but a strange sense of _I told you so_. Like she hadn’t seen it coming. Not exactly the kiss but… well, Tony has never looked at her the way he looks at Gibbs. _Ever._ She’s pretty sure the only other person Tony looks at with that amount of devotion is Bea.

“Abby?” she asks, glancing back at her phone and feeling guilty.

“A wreck. Ducky has her. I think he’s confiscated her cell and put her to bed.”

And Kate runs out of things to ask even though there’s a million questions in her head. She just stands there with Baoth on her shoulder and Bea in her arms, and stares dully at her youngest co-worker. He looks lost. Poor kid.

Bea yawns. And hiccups. She’s probably hungry. She’s definitely tired.

“I have to feed her,” she says to no one in particular, and the next thing she’s aware of is sitting at the couch and McGee gently taking the bottle from her hands, the baby. Crying always knocks her on her ass, leaving her desperately tired, and just… empty.

“I’ll put her to bed,” someone says. Probably McGee. Maybe Chitta.

She falls asleep on the couch to the sound of someone singing the Pokémon theme song in the next room.

She thinks of her brothers.

 

* * *

 

Tony looks like shit.

He’s blue. They’ve turned the lights off but he’s still blue; his lips and his nails and his skin the colour that Gibbs associates with the word ‘ashen’. He’s seen corpses that look more lively. He doesn’t look much like Tony at all, and that should make this easier. Fitz is next to him, the beds pushed close, and he can see the rapid rise and fall of her flanks as she struggles for air; the disease is destroying her as surely as it does her human. He can see blood on the sheets around her nose and mouth, matting the fur on her muzzle along with flecks of pink-stained foam.

Kali doesn’t go to her. Kali just stares.

Kali is his fear and his heart right now so that he can be the strong one.

He leans in close. Tony smells nothing like the last time they were this close. He doesn’t really smell like anything but blood and sweat, and it’s not even his sweat. This place, this fucking room, it’s flavoured his scent with the emptiness of hospitals, and he will not die like that.

“Tony, listen to me. Are you listening?”

He fucking better be.

Tony’s lungs rattle when he inhales. Whistle when he exhales. Man can’t even be quiet when he’s got the damn plague. But he talks. It must hurt. Gibbs would wince in sympathy, but he needs to be unflappable right now. If DiNozzo sees weakness on him, it’s all over. Only strong men lead.

“I’m listening. I’m listening, Boss.”

He brushes his hand against the back of DiNozzo’s head, feeling the sweat-soaked locks slipping greasily through his fingers. It turns into a caress. It turns into him cupping the man’s head like he’s a child, locking their gazes together. “You will not die, you got that?” Leans in closer. Pitt is watching. Ducky is watching. He doesn’t give a shit. Tony’s lips are cracked and bloodied and still he leans in close enough that they brush his own. “I said, you will _not_ die.”

Tony breathes once. Twice. Again. There’s a stubborn persistence to him that might see them all through this. His breath is cold on Gibbs’ mouth. “Is it safe? Elizabeth… is it safe for her? I want… just let me hold her. Please.”

He’s begging. Gibbs feels sick. And he’s cruel once more, except this time he’s not lashing out. This time it’s calculated. He pulls away and stares down into those glazed brown eyes. “No. You want your daughter, DiNozzo, you get up and you go get her. You walk out of here. You do that and I promise, I’ll hand her to you myself.”

Tony smiles, brokenly. There’s a spark of life. There it is.

That’s the Tony that doesn’t die on his watch. That’s the Tony that walks away from this. Something nameless and knotted in his chest loosens, and he doesn’t mention the folded letter on the pillow that still smells of their shampoo combined.

“Okay. I got you, Boss.”

 

* * *

 

Her phone rings finally, and she’s frozen on the couch, can’t answer, can’t answer, can’t…

Timothy McGee is a gift.

“Ullo’. Boss? Yeah. Ye…ah. Oh thank god. Thanks Boss. I’ll tell her. Thank god.”

She doesn’t even need him to tell her because he’s smiling and on the verge of relieved laughter.

Tony’s alive still. He’s staying that way.

She tells Bea in a whisper so she doesn’t wake her, and fancies that the baby smiles.

 

* * *

 

They say he’s probably going to live. He’d be happier about it, but he still feels like he’s dying. Gibbs leaves for a while. Tony tries to count his breaths and treasure each one, but he’s pretty sure he keeps falling asleep and waking up without noticing the time in between. Fitz is out cold. She looks like shit. Then Gibbs comes back. And… climbs into one of the empty beds.

What the fuck?

“Did… you… miss me?” Tony wheezes instead of asking _why_. Kali snorts from where she’s turning in tight circles next to Fitz, before curling tightly against the dog dæmon with her nose buried in the dog’s thick ruff.

“Nope. Gotta get you home to your kid. Promised. Now shut up and go to sleep.” And with that, the oddest person in Tony’s life closes his eyes and, by all appearances, goes to sleep. The lights switch off, throwing them into darkness.

Gibbs stays.

“This reminds me… of a… movie…” Tony says finally into the darkness.

A huff of air. Gibbs _is_ awake. Hah. “If you don’t shut up and sleep, DiNozzo, I’ll finish what the plague started.”

He shuts up.


	15. Taunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>  

Tony’s hobbling around his house like he’s two steps away from needing a new hip, and if he tries to hobble just that little bit less pathetically, his lungs bitch until he has to sit. It’s bullcrap. Three weeks ago, he could almost outrun Gibbs. Now he needs to sit down for a rest after getting the milk out the fridge.

“You look blue,” Fitz says one morning, as he seats his naked ass gingerly on the edge of the bath and tries to breathe using the spongy mass of scar-tissue that are his useless piece-of-shit lungs now.

“I’m not depressed, Lassie,” he snaps, wondering where he’s left the inhaler in case this tightness doesn’t leave anytime soon. The mix of albuterol and steroids taste awful, but at least on them he doesn’t feel like he’s trying to breathe with a wet pillow pressed over his mouth and nose. Fitz appears, claws ticking on the tiles, and drops the inhaler neatly into the pile of wet towel at his feet. She sits, tail tapping slowly on the ground.

“No,” she says, peering up at him. He looks down at her, flinching with sick _guilt_ at the manginess of her fur and the way her coat hangs lifelessly from her concave sides. She looks like shit. She looks like the poster child for the ASPCA, and all because his body is failing them, “I mean you look blue, Tony. Your lips.”

He looks up at the mirror. That’s useless because it’s fogged and he doesn’t have the energy to stand even if it wasn’t. So, he looks down at his hands, and his nails are tinged with that lovely shade of ‘you’re fucked’ that means he’s going back into hospital to get a tube shoved down his throat by the annoyingly chipper Dr. Pitt. All bets are off on how long it takes Ducky or Abby or, worse, Gibbs, to rock up after that happens. He’s starting to think they have a beeper that flashes whenever he steps into a hospital. He’d complain, but he has a suspicion it might come in handy one day. He is somewhat… prone… to hospital stays. And Abby makes great ‘stop being sick’ cakes. Shaped like coffins. They’re basically a threat in pastry form.

The doorbell rings.

“Think you can manage the door?” he asks Fitz, squinting down at his towel and the puffer on top of it. “Failing that… think you can get my cell?” She pads out. He listens to her go. There are spots in his vision. He looks at his nails again. Who needs beauticians? Just catch the plague. The new fad diet of feds everywhere. Between him and Fitz, they could start some kind of xylophone band on their collective ribcages. And, damn, it’s getting hard to breathe.

“We’re dizzy,” Fitz says loudly, too loudly, and he guesses she’s somehow managed the door because there are footsteps coming towards the… bathroom. Wait. How did a dog unlock the door?

Kate. Gibbs. Someone with a key. Oh good.

“Tony?” calls his saviour, but it’s not a saviour at all. “You alright? You need me to come in?”

Fuck. Shit fuck shitting… shit. He can’t think of better cuss words right now.

“No,” he lies. He reaches for his inhaler with his blue-tinged toes and slips off the bath. There’s a jolt of sharp pain up his tailbone as he hits the tiles. Ow. “Maybe. Promise not to tell Kate?”

Babbling echoes through the door. Bea. Kate’s at work. A soft rumble of voices follows.

The door opens and James steps in, eyes partly closed and peeking out from between his fingers. He tosses a clean towel down before squatting and examining Tony carefully as Tony struggles to arrange the towel artfully across his lap. “No promises,” he says finally. “Going to walk to the car, or does this have to get really awkward?”

If there’s one thing the plague took from Tony, it’s his pride.

 

* * *

 

“Well,” Kate says as she steps into the hospital room where James is drawing faces on a blown-up glove to entertain Bea and Tony is sheepishly sitting in a gown with a mask over his face. “Guess you’re coming home with us then. And just when I got James out of my house too.”

Tony shrinks. She can see the reluctance on his face. There’s a _bang_ as Lex’s puppy teeth make short work of the glove. It’s not like Kate’s super enthused about the idea either. He never puts the toilet seat down and his feet smell feet-y. But, if James hadn’t randomly decided to take Bea to visit her dad…

He shouldn’t be alone. Period.

“Thanks,” she says quietly to James when Tony is distracted by trying, unsuccessfully, to nab a pretty nurse’s number. Fitz isn’t joining in, lying next to him all skinny and quiet and painfully sad. Kate hates how dæmons sicken. “You know. For checking on him.”

James snorts and Ferox clacks his beak twice. “Wasn’t checking on him. Thought I might pawn your kid off. She kept trying to eat my couch. Why should I care if the idiot is okay or not?” But he doesn’t meet her eyes as he says it.

Tony’s probably going to be spending a lot more time with him.

She’s not sure who she feels sorrier for.

 

* * *

 

After the third day, they stop arguing quite so much. After the first week, they hardly argue at all. And after that… well, Tony’s always hesitant to throw the word ‘friend’ around, but it’s hard to be coy with a guy who’d practically carried his half-naked ass down three flights of stairs. And he’s really good at _Mortal Kombat_.

Plus, it really pisses Kate off when they gang up on her, which is just fine by Tony.

Staying at Kate’s is weirdly like going backwards, except for the small things that have changed. Like Tony’s shitty lungs. And Fitz’s shitty appearance, even as it slowly begins to improve, although she still looks like she should be seriously considering increasing her carb intake. Bea reaches for Kate before she reaches for him, but that’s always been like that. Abby reassures him it’s normal. Kate’s a source of food, after all. Tony’s fine with it. He’ll turn the tables when the kid is old enough to appreciate John Wayne.

Besides, she says Dad first.

“Da’aa,” she says, which is close enough, and grabs Fitz’s ear. And squeezes. Ow. Lex gets a nip from the startled dog and they don’t do the grabbing thing again. They do do the ‘daaa’ thing again, which is just peachy. Take that Kate. If she wanted her to say ‘maaa’ first, maybe _she_ should have inhaled _eu du’ plague_ instead of him and then she’d be the one having the impromptu babysitting holiday. Even if he’s not allowed to be alone with his own kid without Kate having conniptions about him passing out or spontaneously dying or some bullshit.

Kate staggers in from a hard day actually being allowed to leave the house, and goes immediately to her daughter and her bed in quick succession. Tony finds them an hour later in a jumble of limbs and snoring mouths on her bed; Bea cradled in Kate’s arms and Lex curled around Baoth as a flop-eared puppy once more.

Kate’s smiling, even though she’s asleep.

And everything is different, but it’s still a little okay.

 

* * *

 

Kate walks in with Bea a heavy, smelly weight in her arms, and Tony is pacing the living room with his cell pressed to his ear. Fitz is pacing with him, her head low and tail high, and they’re both anxious enough that Kate can almost taste it. She pauses. And she doesn’t call out. Instead, she listens, and she’ll feel guilty about it later, once she’s finished being mad.

“No, Dad. I can’t visit your… we don’t have a villa in Madrid. We’ve never had a villa in Spain. That was Greece. Yes, I’m sure. Remember the card game with that guy who looked like a llama? Spaniel dæmon with a crooked leg?”

“I didn’t know Tony still talked to his father,” Baoth murmurs, tilting his head against her hair. “I thought he said every conversation with him just ends in an argument.”

Kate listens and a smile teases. “I think this _is_ them arguing.” There’s a whine in Tony’s voice, barely tempered by the way his breath catches on every other word as his lungs choke. She imagines this is very much how he would have sounded as a child, caught and scolded for some stupid prank he’d played on his parents or the help. He sounds plaintive.

She imagines he would have been spoiled terribly.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for asking. No, I don’t know why work tried to contact you. Yeah… must have been really inconvenient for you. They should really think twice before contacting you over a… cold. I got the gift basket. You’ll have to thank Sarah for me, she managed to get at least one thing I actually eat in there. Or is it Chloe? Yeah, Sarah was the last wife. Fucked if I can keep up.”

Fitz snarls, just once, low and angry and _hurt_ and suddenly it’s not funny anymore. Suddenly, she’s picturing a child DiNozzo, and he’s not spoilt at all, but drowning in loneliness. Locked in a hotel room and forgotten. And she wants to walk in there and take the phone from her friend’s hands and ask the man on the other end why he hasn’t once come to visit his granddaughter, or his son.

Bea makes a loud noise and Tony’s voice drops, becoming muffled. Kate sighs, readjusting their daughter in her hold, and steps out into the room. Fitz glares at her accusingly. Tony doesn’t break eye contact with the wall.

“Alright. Yeah. Maybe Christmas. I’ll see if I can get time off work. Thanks Dad. Cya.”

He turns and smiles falsely. She doesn’t hesitate, because she needs to get the image of his childhood out of her head before the idiocy that is Anthony DiNozzo actually starts making sense to her. “Your dad send all his gifts through his… wife? Wives?”

His smile flickers. “Yeah. Don’t actually think he knows what a pen looks like. Hey, whatcha having for supper? Want a plus two? Fitz has a hankering for your meatballs…”

Baoth rattles his wings. “Those gifts Bea got from him, he signed them. That was a man’s handwriting.” Fitz shrinks back. Everything about her body language right now screams _guilty guilty guilty._

Kate stares at him. “That was your handwriting, wasn’t it, Tony?” She watches as he swallows thickly as, reaching for words that have never failed him before, finding them wanting, he coughs, twice. The sound is dry and he drops a hand to his pocket for the inhaler he carries now like a lucky charm. She ignores the spark of worry this brings. “Does he… Jesus fuck, Tony, you never told him did you? Does he even know you have a kid?” And she laughs, because that’s _insane,_ but Tony doesn’t.

The fight that follows is unsatisfying only because he still doesn’t have the breath to shout back, and he leaves before she manages to work up the anger to ask him when he’d started being ashamed of his daughter.

 

* * *

 

Kate is being frustratingly overprotective, which is odd, because Tony’s pretty sure she still hasn’t forgiven him for keeping Bea from his dad. He hasn’t quite found a way to tell her that he didn’t do it to save his dad the embarrassment of a bastard grandchild… he did it to save Bea the embarrassment of a DiNozzo for a grandad. It’s the same reason she has Kate’s last name. For all his bluster, Tony knows his family name brings shit with it he has no intention of letting touch his daughter. She’s gonna grow up her own girl, not Senior’s, and make them all proud.

“Maybe Tony should wait in the car,” Kate says, and she manages to look both really concerned and really uncaring all at once. It helps that Baoth looks uncaring just naturally, what with his birdy beak and black soulless eyes and… well, general hawkiness. They’re not exactly Fitz-level fuzzy. “It’s cool out.”

“It’s. May,” Tony grits out through clenched teeth. “This is balmy, Kate. It’s _balmy_. I could wear my Baywatch outfit and not even catch a sniffle.” She looks disgusted and like she really wants to say something cutting about his weight in reply to that, and he’s smugly pleased that she now has to wrestle her warring desires of making him miserable or disregarding his existence. Hah.

Salvation doesn’t come from Gibbs.

“He’s fine, Kate,” Tim says quietly, his hands curled around Chitta’s tummy and holding him close to his lap. “Leave it.”

And she, remarkably, does.

Later, before the snake and the car bomb and everything that follows, Tony asks him why he stuck up for him.

“Because I know what it’s like to be underestimated,” Tim says in response, and Tony, just like Kate did so long ago, reconsiders just what the younger man is made of.

 

* * *

 

“Oh goody. I do so enjoy seeing that look on your face, Gibbs.”

Gibbs bristles, feeling Kali do the same. Morrow watches them both warily, his dog dæmon at his feet. Sometimes, Gibbs wonders about the amount of damn dogs in law enforcement. Why not cats? Dogs get the job done, but they work best in teams. They don’t strike out on their own. You need sneaky and alone, you need a cat.

You need the job done sneakily, you get a fox. Best of both worlds. That was Franks’ way.

And Morrow’s dæmon is no law enforcement dog. It’s no Malinois or Alsatian. It’s dark blue with silver undertones and one black ring around an icy eye, and it watches him just as carefully as its owner. Neither of them look comfortable behind the Director’s desk. Neither of them ever have. Gibbs understands that feeling. He’d never sit right with his ass permanently behind a desk either.

“The hell is this, Tom?” he asks, holding up the paperwork he’d found on his keyboard coming back from what had turned out to be an uncomfortably eventful case for Tony’s first day back. He’d wanted calm, damnit. He’d wanted calm and easy and instead he’d gotten a bomb and Tony down in autopsy getting the whistle in his breathing checked out. He’s torn between wanting Ducky to send him home to keep him safe, and wanting Ducky to pronounce him healthy so they can put this whole thing to rest. He doesn’t want to spend the next few months with one eye on him. That’s not how he works. And if this is going to be the outcome of the ill-timed kiss, this hyper-vigilance where his second is concerned…

Was it worth it?

Kali grumbles, her tail flicking irritably. It’s practically a shout of anger, and both Morrow and his blue heeler look at her.

“Man put in a complaint about the conduct of his arresting officer,” Morrow says calmly, adjusting his tie. “DiNozzo was his arresting officer. Says he was subjected to ‘inhumane treatment.’ It’s not going to go any further Gibbs, but you have to sign off that you’ve seen it otherwise he’ll have grounds to get his case dismissed. The man is an imbecile.”

Gibbs looks down at the complaint. There’s a picture of the complainer on the rap sheet stapled to the front; both the runny-eyed man and his rust-red weasel dæmon. Gibbs has always hated weasels. Minor charges. They’d collared him to get to the guy they really wanted. Ass. Not smart enough to make a complaint stick. Unimportant and, _worse_ , distracting him right when he doesn’t need to be distracted by anything else than the team of distractions he already has.

“Make it disappear,” he says coolly, dropping the sheet on the desk and walking away. “It’s bullshit.”

“You have to sign it, Gibbs. Gibbs!”

He ignores him.

 

* * *

 

“What if you collapse? What if something happens and you have a relapse? She’s seven-months-old, Tony, she can’t pick up your cell and text one of us if that happens.”

He’s staring at her like she’s the monster here. It’s oddly hard to turn away from that look.

“You don’t just _relapse_ the plague, Kate,” he says, carefully and slowly, like he’s speaking to someone particularly stupid. “It’s not tonsillitis. It doesn’t just pop back in when it feels like screwing up your day. I have antibiotics coming out of mine and Fitz’s ears, I have Fitz to warn me if I’m not well, I have a well-meaning but oddly persistent neighbour who keeps bringing me soup and pinching my butt. I’m not going to keel over and let her starve in her crib.”

There’s a sharp barking from said crib as Lex and their daughter chatter happily at each other in their own language, made of a bizarre mixture of human and animal noises. Kate ignores the shudder that works its way up her spine, because she can’t sleep anymore without the nightmares, and they’re all the same but different. All terrifying.

Bea alone. Tony’s not there, he’s just not _there_ , and she’s nowhere to be seen. Bea crying for them, hugging Lex, no one coming. It’s a stupid dream. Gibbs would never let Bea cry for long. Neither would Abby, even if for some reason her parents aren’t there. Even Tim… just a stupid dream.

One of many.

Tony struggling for air and finding none. On the ground with his lips turning blue. Fitz beside him, her soft eyes glazing over.

Baoth falling from the sky in a shower of fractured light.

Damn Abby. _Damn_ Abby. This was all her fault. Ever since she’d told Kate about her dream… Tony with blood on his face… this was the outcome.

“I just…” She presses her hand against the bridge of her nose, staving off a headache. “Please, Tony. I just don’t want her far away at the moment… either of you.” It costs a lot to admit.

Tony makes an angry _pah_ in the back of his throat and leaves. She wants to say she’s sorry, but she’s still shaking. Baoth _churrs_ miserably, hunched over on the curtain rod, his beak half-open and feathers mantled. “I feel like a storm is coming,” he whines, and she glances out the window. There’s dark clouds overhead, the air thick and uncomfortable. “If we end up needing therapy for this, Abby’s coming too. Tony won’t tease _her_ about bad dreams.”

“I think therapy is the least of our worries at the moment,” Kate mutters darkly, reaching her hand up to bring him close. She clings to him like she hasn’t since she was a girl, and she doesn’t even fully understand why she’s doing so.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs is a heartless monster. That’s all Tony can assume. Tony pours his heart out to him, and the man just sits there and pecks away at his keyboard like a pigeon trying to pick glitter out of a pile of broken glass. _Heartless._

“She’s treating me like a child,” he complains, kicking his drawer shut and leaning back in his office chair, swallowing back a cough that will have Gibbs looking sharply at him. He draws a breath carefully, feeling it try to hitch and managing to hide it. Fitz covers her nose with her stupidly big paws, her own lungs struggling, and Kali’s sharp eyes following her unflinchingly. “’Have you got your inhaler, Tony? Have you taken your medication, Tony? Do you need to use the bathroom, Tony? We have a big trip and I’m not turning this car around…”

“You are a child,” Gibbs growls, his eyebrows furrowing down over his eyes like angry geriatric caterpillars. Tony amuses himself by imagining trying to coax them from his boss’s face with a leaf… then quickly snaps back to attention as the flat of Gibbs’ palm meets his keyboard with extreme prejudice. “Ah, to hell with this!” He stands, grabbing his coat roughly, clearly done with the day. Tony is… not overly keen on going home. Hence why it’s pushing seven and he still hasn’t left the building. Can he justify hanging here after Gibbs leaves?

Not when McGee, the overly helpful little computer-gremlin, has decided to be _too_ fucking helpful and has done all his paperwork and then some. Kid has too much time on his hands. Tony makes a mental note to occupy some of that time with some kind of really irritating prank and files that thought away for a later point not occupied by his sulking boss and his two sulking caterpillar eyebrows.

“Computer being computer-y, Boss?” he asks cheerfully, resting his hand on his bag like he’s only just now thought of leaving. Maybe if he hovers, looks plaintive, Gibbs will invite him….

God _damn_ it DiNozzo, when did you get so pathetic? Stop being such a teenage girl… Kate will have him doing her hair and nails soon, if he keeps this up.

Gibbs just seethes. “Get home, DiNozzo. Sleep. See you in the morning.”

He slumps as the man strides past. He doesn’t actually mean for his next words to be overheard but his boss has ears like… well, a fox. “If I don’t bail for Morocco…”

Blue eyes pin him to the chair as Gibbs turns on a dime and all the force of his computer-generated irritation is suddenly aimed in Tony’s general direction. “You gonna quit on me?” he barks.

Several answers trip over themselves to leave his mouth at once. _No. Yes. Not if you let me kiss you again. Only if you don’t let me. Maybe. Do you think Bea would like Australia?_ What he actually manages to say is, “Contemplating it sometimes. New pastures. Greener pastures. Warmer pastures. Lungs aren’t what they used to be. Knew I should have quit smoking all those years ago.” He’s trying to turn it into a joke, but that trick stopped working at some point, and maybe that should have been his sign that it was time to bail. Two-year-Tony almost four years in… yeah, maybe he should have gone years ago.

But, then he wouldn’t have Bea.

Or Gibbs.

“You’re not gonna quit,” Gibbs says, his mouth quirking up slightly into an impossible, rare almost-smile. “You’re not the type to run from trouble, DiNozzo, unless you’re running right at it. Never away.”

Tony almost laughs but it turns into a rattling cough and the smile vanishes, turns to concern. He’s beginning to fucking _hate_ concern. Sucking on the inhaler, the bitter-cold coating cooling his throat and trickling down to his recovering lungs, he grins weakly around watering eyes. “Shows how well you know me,” he wheezes. “Undependable, that’s me in a nutshell.”

Gibbs takes his bag from under his hand, slings it over his shoulder, and rolls his eyes. “Nope. We got shit left to do, you and me. Come on. I’ll drive you home.”

 

* * *

 

He drops Tony home and then he drives until his phone beeps with an incoming text. Then, he drives some more. And climbs out. The water is beautiful in the moonlight. He can appreciate that, despite the hatred that does its best to blind him as the man by the water turns to face him.

“Washington is such a lovely city this time of year. Don’t you agree, Special Agent Gibbs?” Ari says quietly, and there’s a flicker of movement around his feet. His snake. Kali could snap its neck with a flick of her jaws. As though she’d heard him her mouth opens, teeth glinting promisingly.   

“You tried to kill my team today,” he says, his hand twitching. He doesn’t reach for his gun. Not yet. “You were in my house. You’ve been watching us. Watching me. Gonna kill me now you have me alone?”

Ari moves like his snake. Smoothly and sinuously. Gibbs wants to stamp down with his heel right on his smug face. “Oh, Gibbs. If you could prove that, I’d be dead already. No… I’m not going to kill you, fox. Where’s the fun in that? And you’re not going to kill me. We’re in a lovely area here. Residential. Great for children. Great for nasty little devices tucked into playhouses, toys, under beds. Dæmons are so… multi-purposeful. And I do _so_ love children.”

The snake rears, its hood flaring. “How’s Caitlin, by the way? I’ve thought of her often since we last met,” she hisses, mouth gaping like a black wound in its sharp face. “Her daughter… she truly is a delight, is she not? So precious. So… fleeting. They’re gone so quickly, aren’t they… Kali?”

Kali shrills, and lunges, a feint. Her teeth don’t meet flesh, but they snap in the air in front of the cobra’s throat. She doesn’t flinch. “Go near her and I don’t care what government agency is watching your back, I will kill you this time!” Kali screams, whirling on the spot, her eyes wild.

“If you continue hunting me, Gibbs,” Ari says, his eyes on the fox and his mouth coldly triumphant, “I will take away everything you hold dear in this world. And I think you are not so cocky anymore to pretend that that is an idle threat.”

Gibbs lets him walk away, because what else can he do? He knows there’s every chance Ari’s telling the truth about the bomb; every chance there’s a sniper sight on his back right now. He’s not worried though. Ari is a snake, and snakes are easily crushed.

He’s looking forward to it.


	16. Kate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It takes a heartbeat for everything to come crashing down.

Kate takes a bullet for him. Just one bullet. It impacts harmlessly into her vest.

He’d goaded Ari.

Baoth hit the ground when Kate did, the downside of his unsteady perch on her shoulder. She laughs. Tony picks the dæmon up. Gibbs wonders when they’d gotten to the point of touching each other’s dæmons during the course of their tumultuous relationship. He compliments Kate.

He’d almost asked for this.

Kate takes another bullet for him. Just one more bullet. It slams through her skull right as Baoth spreads his wings to take off and instead shatters into Dust.

He doesn’t cry out. He just dies.

He’s there until he’s not, and Tony is covered in red and gold.

She falls.

“Kate?” Tony asks. He spreads his fingers like a question, sending gold cascading to the ground.

Kali screams.

 

* * *

 

Kate dies like any other person. She falls like any other person, she lands like any other person, she bleeds like any other person. She cools like any other person.

Except she’s not any other person.

Tony takes her hand, wrapping shaking fingers around ones that don’t squeeze back in return, and waits for the sirens to stop.

 

* * *

 

Tim and Tony wait with Kate as sirens wail towards them. Gibbs knows what happens next. They’ll put her in a black bag that will rustle accusingly with every movement. They’ll zip it up until she’s obscured. He’s told Tim to wait by the door until that happens. Tim doesn’t need to see her like this. They’ll take her away, back to NCIS for the last time, to Ducky for one final chat. One last story, and it’s written in blood and brain and flecks of bone.

He calls Ducky on his way to where he knows the bullet would have flown from. Ari won’t be there. But he needs to see because he _failed_ to see. A rooftop with a sniper baying for his blood?

His fault.

“Jethro! How did it go? All is well, I hope?” Ducky sounds happy.

Not for long.

“Kate’s dead,” he says, and sees red and gold again. “Kate’s dead, Duck. Ari killed her.”

Ducky doesn’t answer or, if he does, Gibbs doesn’t hear him. Ari didn’t police his brass. Sniper grade, full mental jackets. Five hundred and seventy-two metres to the rooftop where he can see Kate laying and Tony next to her. No wind. Ari hit what he was aiming at.

A bird shrieks overhead and he only barely manages to stop himself from looking.

 

* * *

 

Tony walks back into NCIS at Gibbs’ heels, staring at the back of his boss’s neck. Their dæmons walk behind, pressed uncomfortably close, almost falling over each other. Tim’s shoulder is brushing against Tony’s. There’s blood on his sleeve. Did he get hurt? Tony doesn’t remember.

He should. Bad team-member. Bad DiNozzo.

“Are you okay?” he asks Tim, and Tim stares blankly at him. He points to the red on his sleeve, brown now, not as red as the blood on…

Tony wonders if he got all the blood off his face. The way Tim is staring at him, he doubts it. He looks back to Gibbs, back to the sharp line of his grey hair.

People stare at them, their huddled little group, and they whisper. Tony knows what they’re saying. Everyone knows already; they’re doing ‘The Walk’. Yeah. He’s seen teams do this walk before. Pacci’s team did this walk.

It’s the walk of shame. It’s the walk of ‘we fucked up and one of us died’.

It’s the walk of three where there should be four.

They exit the elevator together, people are still staring, and Kate’s desk is empty. He looks down as he walks past it to his own, still holding himself together.

There’s a photo of Bea behind her keyboard.

_Bea_.

It hits him

He doesn’t make it to the bathroom before he vomits, but there’s no one there to see. He’ll apologise to the cleaner later, buy him a beer or something. He looks about for something to clean it up, but his limbs are shaking and he has to sit down.

He’s alone.

 

* * *

 

Tony’s eyes glaze and his skin turns green and Gibbs lets him bolt from the room. He doesn’t follow. He has to help him in other ways now because he owes Kate, owes Bea. Kate’s not even three hours cold and already Gibbs is floundering in the hole she’s left in their lives. Friend, team-mate, lover, mother.

Sister.

He dials James’ number and, when Kate’s brother picks up, he can hear Bea laughing in the background as though nothing bad could ever happen.

And he tells him.

 

* * *

 

He washes his face five times and still can’t get the gold out of his hair. He considers shaving it off, if only to stop the way the light keeps catching glints of what was once a living breathing _fuck_.

He can’t finish that thought.

He can’t.

Kali’s scream had torn the air from his lungs just as Fitz’s had moments later when the dog joined her.

Baoth had made no noise because Baoth didn’t exist anymore. Kate… they had a body to bury with Kate. But Baoth? The cocky, arrogant bird with the sharp voice and biting talons? Nothing but gold in his hair and his mouth and his clothes. Nothing but memories.

That could be Fitz one day, if something went wrong. It could be Kali. It could be Lex.

Nothing.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs looks for Tony after he’s washed his mouth and his face, but he’s gone. Just gone. He figures he went home, but that’s not right. Tony clings to his job like a lifeline, especially when he’s drowning, and he should be here pushing himself too far too fast.

“Where’s Tony?” he asks Tim, who’s hugging Abby and holding her together even though it hasn’t sunk in for him yet. Tim shrugs. Abby pales. Her hair is down.

“Where’s Tony?” Kali echoes, running around his legs, her eyes locked on the monkey and the chameleon.

If anyone responds, all Gibbs hears is sirens.

“Where’s Tony?” he asks Ducky, and Ducky is staring at the body bag on his autopsy table like he’s already buried too many people, and he has, they all have. Palmer’s eyes are red. Ducky should send him home. They should get another ME in.

Sirens. Louder.

He rings James again and the man’s been crying. “Where’s Tony?” he asks again, three times now, too many fucking times, and there’s a sharp inhale of breath on the other end.

“Not here,” James responds, and there’s crying, a baby, more sirens.

Gibbs runs.

 

* * *

 

Tony drives until he sees the rooftop again, but it’s still crawling with cops and it’s pissing down rain now, so he drives away again. Then he gets out and he walks because the rain is warm and maybe, just maybe, he’ll feel clean in it. He can’t go home until he’s clean. He can’t let Bea see him, touch him, until there’s no trace of blood or Dust on his skin. He walks and he walks and he walks and his lungs burn, his muscles burn, and eventually even Fitz is gasping.

“We should go back,” she says, and the sun is setting, it’s still raining, and his mobile is off.

He turns it on and sits down to wait, because he’s lost and Gibbs has never failed to find him before.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs is scared like he’s never been before. He’s scared because he _asked_ for this, practically begged Ari for it, and now Kate is dead and Tony…

Tony is sitting on the curb, soaking wet with a sorry excuse for a dog at his side.

He pulls over with a sharp twist of the wheel and the car shudders. Tony climbs in, glances at the seat, apologises. He’s soaked. So is Fitz; Kali immediately begins licking her fur when the dog scrambles onto the backseat, hardly making a difference but trying anyway. The car stinks of wet dog and wet agent, and Gibbs doesn’t care because he’s here and Ari…

Ari hasn’t taken everything yet.

He’s shaking because Tony doesn’t know. Tony doesn’t know that Gibbs went to the roof before Tim had gotten a trace on Tony’s phone. The roof that’s free of cops now, but not free of everything.

The rain had washed the blood away, and the Dust, but someone else had beaten Gibbs there.

He’ll be angry later, but right now one of his hands is in his pocket, wrapped around the crumpled photo of Kate and Bea he’d found resting in the spot she’d died. Tony doesn’t know that Gibbs is terrified.

He doesn’t tell him.

He has to protect them.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs takes him to his car because Tony asks him to. He doesn’t argue or offer to come with him, even though they both know where he’s going now. Tony drives, the needle resting just above empty, and finds himself outside James’ apartment. And he waits, with the car idling and the heater cranked, until the engine chokes and splutters. Empty. An hour has passed.

He climbs the stair and each one takes both an instant and an eternity.

He knocks. James answers. He’s holding Bea, holding her close like he can’t let go, and Tony doesn’t have the heart to take her from him even though suddenly in that moment all he wants is to hold his daughter and touch her hair, so much like Kate’s, and look in her eyes that still smile like Kate’s don’t.

“I called Mom,” James says. He begins to cry. A grown-ass man crying while holding a struggling baby, and Tony doesn’t feel a whole lot other than the desire to take the baby from him and let him drown.

It’s not callousness. It’s nothing.

Instead, he steps in and makes two coffees. He gives one to James, he feeds and puts Bea down to sleep, and then he stays up all night and is exactly what James needs him to be right then.

Which is good, because he sure as fuck can’t be what anyone else needs.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs drops Tony at his car, counts to twenty, and then he follows him home. He parks with a view of James Todd’s apartment and DiNozzo’s car. Checks his gun. Both of them. He cracks a window so Kali can scent the air.

And then he waits.

Ari said he’d take everything. Gibbs can’t let that happen.

Not again.

 

* * *

 

The next day dawns, despite the strangeness of it all. Tony is awake to see the dawn light creep over the neatly made surface of the spare bed next to Bea’s port-a-cot. In another apartment, a silent apartment, the same thing will be happening to Kate’s bed and Kate’s belongings. Things she’d planned to come home to. Things she never would.

He’s been awake all night, watching Bea sleep, because he needs to be sure that her heart keeps beating. He’s been reminded suddenly of how easy it is for a heart to stop.

“My family’s coming today,” James says huskily when Tony joins him at the breakfast table, showered and dressed like he intends on going to work. “They want… they want to see her.”

And Tony nods. He feels the same. He’d do anything to see her one more time as well. Preferably without the hole in her head. Preferably alive.

“I’m going to work, bug,” he says to his daughter, and she snoozes on. She’s always been a good sleeper. Kate had loved that. “I’ll be home tonight, okay?” He doesn’t promise though. He’s done that before. Kate’s gone. That’s gonna sink in soon and it’s gonna hurt like a bitch, because he knows he’s still cushioned by shock, and when it does he needs to be ready. He doesn’t get to mourn forever. He needs to rebuild what Ari’s broken, because he has someone relying on him to do so.

He kisses her twice, to make up for the one who isn’t there, and life goes on like she’s still beside them.


	17. Tension

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony comes back to work the next day looking as sharp as Gibbs has ever seen him. Shirt pressed to within an inch of its life; shoes shined to a slick sheen; not a hair out of place. Shaved close enough that Gibbs can practically see the path the razor took over his skin. He stinks of an unfamiliar soap, almost harshly masculine instead of his usual subtle cologne. Fitz is the same, but she doesn’t walk with Tony’s forced almost-arrogant stride. She slinks. Her nose brushes the ground. She’s still skinny, too skinny, and she doesn’t make eye contact with anyone.

“You need to take more time,” Ducky says on his way down to autopsy, his shoulders bowed and bowtie a muted maroon. He’s pale. They should have gotten another ME.

“I don’t need time, I need Ari’s head on a pike,” Tony says in response, and smiles. He’s pushed all his grief aside and let anger take its place. “That’s not gonna happen if I sit at home with my thumb up my ass.”

Gibbs can see himself in his eyes.

“I’m going to miss her,” Abby says, hugging Tony when she thinks Gibbs isn’t there to see, and Tony doesn’t answer.

“Did she look… okay?” Tim asks, stupid dammit Tim, _stupid_ , and Tony blinks and laughs shrilly.

“She looked dead, McGrim, what do you think?” he barks back, and snaps his gaze back to his own desk so he doesn’t have to risk seeing the empty chair across from him.

Gibbs doesn’t send him home because if he’s home, he’s not in sight. Bea’s not in sight, and that has him twitchy, flinching. He picks up his phone twice, hovers over Fornell’s number. One phone call and Fornell will have feds on the Todds, but he’ll ask questions. He’ll want more.

He’ll tell Tony, and Tony will break under the knowledge.

So, he keeps Tony by his side. He prioritizes the one he thinks Ari will go after, because he knows what he would do if it was his aim to destroy himself.

And Ari’s still out there.

 

* * *

 

“Come stay with me,” Gibbs says, and Tony stares at him.

What?

“For the… night?” he asks warily. Fitz doesn’t look up from the tight ball she’s curled into against his desk, her nose tucked under her paws and eyes empty. If it wasn’t for her chest moving, she’d look like a rug he’s rolled up and shoved there to gather dust. They’re both keenly aware of Ducky under them and the task he’s undertaking today.

“For as long as you need,” Gibbs replies, and his eyes are cold, cold, cold. There’s something in them that has Tony’s nerves jangling; something he’s not saying. “Spare room’s always yours, DiNozzo. Yours and Beas’s.”

“Bea’s with Kate’s family,” he says instead of probing to find out what has his boss so rattled. He can probably guess. Kate had been within an arm’s reach of the both of them, wearing a bullet proof vest, smiling. She’d still died. He can understand Gibbs’ need to keep them close now, all of them.

But he’s not exactly inviting McGee over for a sleepover.

“Bring her,” Gibbs snaps, he actually snaps, and that’s such a sharp contrast from the almost over-nice way he’s been cosseting them all since Kate died, that Tony is instantly beyond suspicious. It’s not a good feeling.

“Okay,” he says. He tells himself it’s because he’s hurting and alone and she’s dead, and maybe Gibbs needs him just as much as he needs Gibbs, but he’s pretty sure some of that is a lie. He doesn’t let himself think that, maybe, just maybe, his boss knows something he doesn’t about her death, and this is just a way to get closer to him in order to find out _what_. That thought feels like a betrayal. He might be unreliable, but he’s never been disloyal, and he hates himself for thinking that Gibbs would keep something from him that would help them catch the sonofabitch that took Bea’s mom away from her. He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t.

Gibbs nods and walks away without a backwards glance, but Tony feels his gaze burning on him all day, and he doesn’t know what to say to him anymore. There’s a wall between him and Gibbs at this moment, and it’s splattered with red and gold and the memory of their kiss.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t bring Bea and Gibbs can’t think, his heart tight in his chest and nerves shot to shit. He says it’s because Kate’s mother has her; Gibbs can hear the unspoken, _‘They need something of Kate to hold onto’_ , and he wonders if Bea isn’t here, just what is DiNozzo holding onto?

He’s sickly aware that Ari is coursing him like a fox under hounds, and he’s letting him do it. He’s running scared. He needs to get his head together. This isn’t how a marine should act when under pressure.

There was never an infant between him and his target when he was a marine.

Kali watches him slop water into a mug messily, stirring the coffee in with the handle of a butter knife. Tony is in the basement, silent, drinking. He lets him. They have work tomorrow, they should be there now, but Morrow is chasing him off Ari and Gibbs can’t fight him on that when he’s busy trying to stop himself from smothering DiNozzo. He’d never had the chance to feel this with Shannon and Kelly. He’d gone straight to angry.

He almost prefers doing it that way.

“You need to calm down,” Kali says, flicking her tail neatly around her paws. “He’s suspicious.”

“He’s grieving.”

“He’s not an idiot. He’s going to figure out you know something you’re not telling him, and he’s angry, Leroy. He’s angry and guilty, and he’ll lash out. Either tell him outright or calm down. Ari’s not knocking on the door just yet. He’s sitting back and letting you destroy yourself.”

Gibbs stares at his fox.

Shannon’s rule #1: always trust your dæmon.

Which means going down there and telling DiNozzo it’s his fault Kate is on a slab instead of home with their daughter.

He tips the coffee out, splattering the counter as it partially misses the sink, and reaches for the whiskey.

 

* * *

 

Tony’s not drunk. Not even close. He mouths his drink, strains it through his teeth, and lets it trickle back into his cup. He spills a bit on his otherwise spotless shirt. He reeks of it. When Gibbs looks at him, he lets his smile turn silly and a little sloppy, and oh how easy it is to deceive the ones we love the most. Fitz eyes him, thinking, and then she stumbles, letting her long legs stagger. She flops an ear. Her tail wags. She hasn’t spoken since they’d zipped the bag over Kate’s open eyes, and that’s fine, that’s fine, she’ll talk when she has something to say. Fuck, it’s not like he’s in the house of merry conversationalists.

Gibbs goes upstairs for coffee and comes back with whiskey. And another. And another. Tony finishes his drink, fills it again, and he’s not drunk. Gibbs thinks he is though, and that’s interesting, because Gibbs has never fallen for his shit before.

He rambles about Kate and he doesn’t have to fake the tears that come. He doesn’t even have to fake the hitch in his voice, or the way every fucking memory is now tainted with the wet sound of a skull imploding and the hot splash of blood and brain on his face and in his mouth. The more he talks, the more it hurts. He wipes his hand over his cheek every couple of minutes, almost obsessively, and half-expecting it to come away red.

Gibbs says nothing, but he drinks steadily and his blue eyes are bloodshot.

Tony reconsiders if he actually wants to know.

Kali whines suddenly and sinks to the floor, her eyes locked on Gibbs. She sounds so much like Fitz in that moment that Tony automatically stoops to touch her comfortingly. And freezes, because his hand is inches from her pointed ears, and Gibbs doesn’t look like he’s drowning anymore, he just looks… plaintive. Old and barely sober and plaintive, like he wants something he doesn’t deserve.

Tony’s whole life in a nutshell there.

He drops his hand. She’s soft and warm and just how he remembers her feeling. His hand shakes with the memory of smooth feathers disintegrating in his fingers, and she feels that. She feels his pain, which means Gibbs does too, and turns her head so his knuckle is pressed on the smooth plane between her eyes, watching him.

Gibbs sighs.

And Tony decides suddenly that he can’t do this. Whatever Gibbs is withholding, let him withhold it. He can’t push him away now, not when Kate is gone and Tony is so close to being fucking lost that he’s clinging to any lifeline that’s thrown.

The floor is cold under his ass and he sprawls a leg out, curls his hands around Kali’s slim body, and pulls her against his chest, on his lap, like she’s a particularly large, pliant cat, complete with tucking her slim muzzle on the point of his shoulder where it curves into neck. Her breath is warm on his skin, she’s trembling under his hands that feel way too big on her, and he’s a confusing mix of awed and aroused.

Gibbs is watching him and there’s nothing confusing about his reaction. Tony could drown in pupils that huge, and when he looks down… there’s a line of ‘no going back from this’ and Tony’s pretty sure they’re traipsing gaily over it. Emphasis on the gay.

The sudden silence is broken by a low growl from Fitz, followed by a confused whine, and she slinks around Gibbs like she’s not sure if she wants to bite him or lick him. Gibbs is silent, hard, and just fucking waiting, and Tony suddenly thinks that Kate’s not even buried yet, she’s not even in the ground and this is…

A betrayal. Somehow.

Kali shudders under him.

“What is this?” he asks, and his voice grates in the dusty air. “This… all of this? What are we doing?”

Gibbs crouches, slowly, and holds his hand out like Fitz is a beaten dog that’s skittish and needs coaxing, but his eyes are on Tony and the alcohol hasn’t served to soften them at all. “Whatever you need it to be, Tony,” he responds quietly, and Tony nods.

Fuck it.

Kate’s not here. Gibbs is.

And Tony’s sick of losing the things he loves.

 

* * *

 

Tony slides Kali onto his lap and Gibbs feels it all.

Longing, desire, grief, hunger, misery.

He’s hard within seconds and his fingers slip on the slippery-smooth surface of the glass he’s holding. He _wants_ and there’s no denying it now, not like there has been in the past when he’d catch Tony watching him and idly wonder if it was curiosity or something darker in the man’s gaze. Kate’s not two days dead, Gibbs is withholding, and none of that serves to stop him from stepping forward, leaning over, and dragging Tony into a rough, needy kiss that leaves them both panting.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs pulls away first and pushes him towards the bedroom, and Tony goes. There’s a moment when their fingers catch and Tony hisses, almost shaking with the effort it takes to restrain himself from shoving the other man against the wall and taking what he wants. He’s not entirely sure if this is something he should be doing, but he’s never been one for overthinking his hasty decisions.

He finds the door to Gibbs’ bedroom, the man himself at his back. The room is musty, unaired. Clean, but unused. Gibbs has always preferred the couch. Maybe Tony should suggest they use that. He huffs a laugh at the thought and it echoes in the empty room. Before he can turn there’s hands on his belt, his buckle, his hips, and a hungry mouth claiming his own. He curves a hand around the other man’s back, and this bit is just like with a woman except he’s flat where he should be curvy and his face prickles against Tony’s chin. They stumble back like they’re attached at the hip, and they basically are, Gibbs finally managing his belt and fly and tugging his pants down just enough so he can slide a hand into the space and _shit._

Tony bucks into that hand, groans, and almost reels with a sudden, clawing panic that’s quickly replaced with a hungry need that has him twitching against the hot palm pressed on him. He falls, landing heavily on the musty bed with Gibbs standing over him and his eye line firmly on the man’s belly. The bed that Gibbs would have shared with his wives. With women.

What the fuck is he doing?

Closing his eyes, he pushes back the sudden burst of panic. _Distract yourself, DiNozzo,_ he chants to himself, and sets his brain to cataloguing the area. Just like a crime-scene. Yeah, just like… no. Fucking hell, no, don’t think of it like that.

“Alright?” Gibbs says from very far away, and Tony nods and continues cataloguing.

Dusty bedside cupboard with a dusty book and a dusty radio and a dusty glasses case that he bets hasn’t moved in months. More dusty cupboards. Maybe this isn’t the best idea to calm down.

If Kate was here, she’d be telling him to suck it the fuck up and then probably imply that hurrying up will be exactly what he’ll be doing when it actually comes to the deed. _“There’s a reason I privately call you Ten-Minute Tony, Tony.”_

_“Ten minutes? Ah, you’re too kind Kate.”_

_“I’m allowing eight for shameful weeping.”_

He has to stop himself from looking about for her, the voice is so vivid, and he shudders. He’s gone soft against Gibbs and the man is talking still, his hand isn’t in Tony’s pants anymore, and this… is embarrassing.

“This never happens,” he stammers, and Gibbs just runs a hand through his grey hair and turns his back, almost pacing, and Tony’s done it, he’s shot himself in the foot. “Seriously, Boss… err, Gibbs. It doesn’t, I’m fine, it’s all fine.”

_“Good work, DiNozzo,”_ says the ghost Kate with a laugh and he lunges for the bedside drawer. Lube, condoms, anything that will get the message across that _‘I want this, this isn’t just me being rash because I need some kind of reminder I didn’t die on that rooftop,’_ even though that’s probably exactly what this is. And isn’t that just the worst fucking way to finally get a man he’s been panting after— _because stop lying to yourself DiNozzo, you have been_ —for years into bed.

Gibbs turns his head, and there’s a sharp noise of almost anger, but Tony’s already wrenched the drawer open hard enough that the back slips out and dumps the contents on the floor.

He freezes. _Shit shit shit shit. Move, Tony, pick it up, do something!_

Scraping his fingers along the carpet to try and scoop the assortment of odd items into the drawer, and Gibbs drops to his knees and knocks his hand away roughly. And Tony sees it. The wooden box that had slipped open upon hitting the ground.

The photo that’s fallen out.

He picks up the picture of Kate and his _daughter_ , and he doesn’t need to be McGee level smart to know the cheery _‘One down!’_ on the bottom isn’t Gibbs’. There’s a note underneath in the same handwriting, and suddenly it’s painfully obvious what Gibbs has been keeping from him.

The anger comes back, and this time gut-wrenching fear makes it vicious.

 

* * *

 

Tony picks up the photo and the note with hands that shake and Gibbs closes his eyes for a second and steels himself. His own voice mocks him. _Rule #1: never screw over your partner._ And that’s exactly what he’s done and, in that moment when Tony looks up from the photo, Gibbs sees once again exactly what it looks like when the person you thought would have your six forever turns and walks away.

There’s another rule for this situation. Rule #8: never take anything for granted.

“When did you get this?” Tony asks very quietly, holding up the photo.

He doesn’t dance about. He’s not the type. “Rooftop. Night she died.” Then he waits, because the nail isn’t in the coffin yet, but he knows it’s coming.

“And this?”

The note.

“When you were in hospital.” _Almost a month ago._

Tony stands and breathes in slowly, and there’s no whistle in the sound. There’s the soft scuff of movement on the carpet behind him, and when he eases himself around to look, Fitz’s nose is poking in the doorway, inching forward. Her head is lowered, the ridged line of black fur along her spine making her dark and dangerous and hinting at the depths of shit Gibbs is in. She moves like a wolf.

Kali keeps her distance.

“You knew Ari was coming.”

He nods. He doesn’t make excuses. It isn’t really a question. Tony’s eyes still widen slightly, like Gibbs has just sucker-punched him in the gut.

“Okay.” Tony nods, and shuffles his feet, almost uncertain. He’s reaching for something that will take this away, that will give him back the man he trusted to have his back. Gibbs doesn’t know if he can. He doesn’t know if he’s that man anymore. “Okay. Fine. Okay. Is Bea in danger?”

Another nod. Another nail. When he finally needs his voice, needs to string some sort of _reason_ together, he can’t find anything to say. He just stands there, mute, useless, as Tony slowly unpeels their entire four-year relationship with every question.

“Tony.” Kali. His fox. A voice. “We wanted to protect you. We didn’t… He’s not after Bea. He’s after us. We’re hunting him…”

“Shut up.” Fitz. Fitz, and there’s a _growl_ in her voice that sounds like violence and rage, and Kali shrinks back, her ears flattening.

“Hunting him?” Tony laughs and the sound is hysterical. “Really? Because by my reckoning, you’re here with your hand on my dick. Last time I checked, Ari wasn’t in my fucking pants, he was out there _shooting Kate in the fucking head._ Protecting me? Protecting _me_ , Gibbs? When did I ask you to protect me?” He steps forward, and again, his hands bunched together. “You should be keeping her safe, not me! I don’t come first—she does!”

“It’s my job, DiNozzo. Don’t need to ask.” He’s found his voice, but not his words. “Knew you’d fly off the handle. She’s not the one who’ll charge out there like a bull after Ari.” _Stupid, stupid, stupid, shut up Leroy. He’s you; he’s a younger you and a younger you would take that as a challenge, just like he will._

He’s proven almost immediately wrong. Tony doesn’t take it as a challenge.

He takes it as an opportunity, and he slams the knife home.

“Really?” His voice is cold. “Well, good job, gunny. You’ve done Kate proud, keeping us all _alive_. I gotta ask; how do you expect to keep my daughter safe when you’ve failed so many times before?”

And he doesn’t say the names but they all hear them.

_Shannon, Kelly, Kate. Now Elizabeth. Tony, too._

He’s winded, broken, but Tony is done and he doesn’t bother to look at him as he strides past and out the door, the photo tearing in the white-knuckled grip he has it in.

“Tony.” It sounds like begging. “Wait.”

“Go to hell.”

And he’s gone, his dæmon with him, leaving Gibbs to drown in his failures.

 

* * *

 

He goes to work like nothing has happened and Gibbs doesn’t look twice at him. They talk when they have to. Their dæmons orbit around each other like moons, never crossing paths if they can help it. McGee and Abby are instantly suspicious, but neither are stupid/brave enough to say anything.

Tony didn’t think it was possible that this day get any worse, what with the hangover he’s managed to acquire despite not having been drunk, the burning memory of Gibbs’ hand down his pants, and the not-so-small knowledge that Ari is out there, Ari wants to hurt his daughter and, oh yeah, Gibbs fucking _knew_.

He glances at the clock. Ten a.m. He shouldn’t be here. He should be home. He should be keeping her safe, not relying on some weak assumption that maybe, just maybe, Ari won’t go after her while she’s surrounded by a ridiculous amount of weeping women and the equally as weepy James, all of whom probably hate him by now because of his refusal to stop living.

That’s probably unfair. He’s probably projecting.

Probably.

The day then hurtles from terrible to supremely awful.

“Cute kid. Is she yours?”

Tony looks up from the photo of Kate and Bea he’d taken from his colleague’s (ex) desk, and finds himself staring up at a woman straight out of dangerous exotics weekly pin-up page. He’s pretty sure if he ever tells her that he thought that, he’ll be dead before he hits the ground. She stands like she’s packing _something_ that will damage him.

“Who are you?” he says, rudely, and he looks down to find a slim-backed cheetah watching him with an amber gaze identical to his human’s.

She smiles like a cat before she answers. Yep. Danger with a capital D. “Ziva David, Mossad.”

_Israeli._

Gibbs isn’t going to like this.

Tony doesn’t like this. “What can I do for you Ms. David?” Fitz stands heavily, and inches around the desk. The cheetah barely reaches her chest in height. He’s not intimidated by her, not in the slightest, and Tony isn’t even surprised.

“Nothing. I am here to see Special Agent Gibbs.”

Tony hesitates, just a second. He considers his options. And he decides he’s staying well out of this one. “Not here. Leave him a note. Make it short, with big letters. He’s old.”

She’s holding the picture. He almost snatches it from her hands, and one perfectly shaped eyebrow raises. He tries not to glower, too much anyway. “She is your girlfriend?”

“Partner. She’s dead. And your ass is on her desk.” Suddenly he’s not careful anymore, he’s just fucking _done._ “Get. Off.” Fitz snarls, something she’s been doing a lot lately, like she’s channelling Kate or something; her hackles up and teeth snapping inches from the cheetah’s muzzle.

David’s eyes follow the dæmons, then trace slowly to him and settle on his hands, bunched in fists. He loosens them, but the damage is done. “Are you threatening me?”

_I will if you don’t get off her desk. Even though I’m pretty sure I’d lose._

He doesn’t say that. He doesn’t get a chance to say anything.

“Problem?” Gibbs says smoothly, and, when Tony looks at him, he’s as calm and unruffled as though nothing is going wrong, everything is fine, and Tony wants to fling his arm out and knock the coffee from his steady hands and see if that calm expression slips even a little. _Bastard bastard bastard…_ “Ziva David. Director Shepherd has just finished filling me in on your… mission.”

“Then you will know that I will not allow you to harm Ari Haswari,” the woman replies, and Tony goes cold.

She’s here to protect Ari. Like fuck she is. He waits for the explosion. He waits for Gibbs to throw her out on her muscular little butt. He waits for Kali to growl, to bristle, to _something._ Some sign that Kate’s death isn’t about to be brushed under the rug, like it’s merely a means to an end of some diplomatic bureaucratic _bullshit._

It doesn’t come.

“Yeah, that you are,” Gibbs says, and doesn’t look Tony in the eye. “Walk with me, David.”

“What the fuck was that?” Fitz says, turning to face him, and Tony doesn’t have an answer. He shouldn’t be surprised. Gibbs seemed to be making a career out of disappointing him recently.

 

* * *

 

Morrow leaves, and suddenly Shepherd is there and Gibbs doesn’t know how to react to that. She solves it by irritating him straight out of the gate. “It says here Agent DiNozzo has a daughter with Agent Todd? Why is he here, Jethro? He can’t be here. He can’t be near this case. I want him home, two days ago. Let him grieve.”

He doesn’t let his gaze slip. She’ll read guilt on him as easily as she’s always read him, and he doesn’t need that right now. “He is grieving. This is how he grieves. He works.” He doesn’t think about the night before. He doesn’t think about the words that were said, and the ones that weren’t. He doesn’t think about what almost happened.

She stares right back and her fox yawns, exposing white teeth that match the creamy swirl of his chest. Kali looks shapeless, dark, and ill-formed next to his lean copper lines. “I see you’re still pushing your team too far,” she says finally, and her mouth twists. “He’s not you, Gibbs, and you can’t expect him to be. He doesn’t need to make his work his life. Send him home. Now.”

So, he does.

Tony looks to him, and then ever so slowly, to the woman who’d taken to haunting the bullpen since Shepherd had brought her into their lives. His gaze narrows. Fitz bares her teeth, again. She’s doing that a lot lately. He picks up his bag and leaves without a word, and that more than anything says everything he needs to.

He leaves without a fight, and Gibbs knows everything has changed between them.

 

* * *

 

The apartment echoes with memories of Kate, even though she’s never stepped foot within it. He’d always gone to her. It’s just… how they’d worked. And now it’s twisted through with memories of Gibbs as well; he’s savagely furious that the man refuses to allow him to be alone with his grief. There was Kali and the kiss and Gibbs’s skin under his hands… and then there was the bed and the photo and the note, and the words Tony had used to cut them both like a knife. There’s no coming back from that kind of hurt. He’d known that as soon as Gibbs had taken a shuddering kind of breath and faltered instead of fighting back.

Fitz watches him from the couch, taking up the whole thing with her nose hanging over the edge. She watches him feed Bea, she watches him bathe her, she watches him as he takes Bea and the sombre Lex to bed. She doesn’t say anything because there’s nothing left to say. He’s done. He’s out of quotes and witticisms. Kate left and took with her the Tony that knew how to talk himself out of any mess. He leaves one of Bea’s shirts laid over the edge of the crib so the kestrel painted by Gibbs’ hand can’t remind him of how much is gone forever and runs two fingers over the delicate curve of Bea’s chin. She blinks up sleepily at him with Kate’s eyes and smiles. For a second, he smiles back. This is fine. It’s gonna hurt like a bitch, but he can do this.

“Ma?” Lex asks, rolling over and shifting into a fluffy chick with a cruel beak, sharp talons, and the suggestion of blue and red feathers. He sees gold and his face itches. “Ma?”

Fitz whines.

Tony bolts.

He can’t do this. There’s Kate in Bea’s eyes and her hair and her dæmon; there’s Kate in the DVDs they’d watched together; there’s Kate in the half-drunk scotch in the cupboard. He paces and paces and paces and finally, picks up the phone. He’s angry, so angry, at Gibbs and Ari and the world. At Ziva fucking David and Gibbs not chasing her away as soon as she’d walked in. If Ari’s alive he’s dangerous—there won’t be a moment Tony isn’t glancing over his shoulder wondering if he’s about to hear that final tinny whistle or if it’s going to be Tim with Tony’s brains like a macabre carnival face-paint next time.

He doesn’t trust Gibbs to protect them. How can he when the man hid the fact that Ari was focusing on his daughter from him, and spent his time protecting _Tony_ instead of his child? He could have forgiven the secrecy if the safeguards Gibbs took were for Bea. But they weren’t. He can’t trust him when Gibbs’ priorities are so different from his own. But he doesn’t have to push him away. There’s a middle ground they can reach, even if things aren’t ever really the same between them.

He finds the contact. He hovers his thumb over it.

There’s a sharp crack, the sound of breaking glass and splintering wood mixed with a high-pitched whine dopplering up. He stops, processes, his brain whirring and grinding to a stop at _fuck what was that_ the memory of an impact and _then_ the sound and oh, _no no no nononononono_

He hears sirens and a fox screaming, except there’s no fox and that screaming is his daughter.

He runs.

 

* * *

 

The bullpen is both far too empty and not empty enough. There’s Tony’s desk staring at him like an accusation. The woman with her amber-eyed cheetah dæmon watch him from behind it, Tony’s Mighty Mouse stapler in her hands as she fiddles with it. He can’t read them. He doesn’t know if they’re here to help or hinder him, but he’s pretty sure it’s a mix of both.

He hates cats.

There’s Kate’s desk and it’s emptier than ever. The photo of Bea is gone. It was on Tony’s desk, but it’s not now.

Tim is hunched at his desk with his gaze firmly locked on his computer screen. He’s hiding from the tension in the room; both Gibbs’ mood since _that_ night and the overall sombre feel of having both Kate and Tony out with one of them never coming back. Just one of them. Because Tony will come back. He always does.

They’ll fix this.

Then his phone rings and proves him wrong, because there’s no fixing this.

“Jethro.” Jenny sounds sharp, almost concerned. “There’s a report of sniper activity in a residential apartment block. The FBI were called in, and they called us.”

“Ari,” he says, and David’s head snaps around. “Was it Ari? Who was the target?”

“Don’t panic, okay? It’s Tony. It’s Tony’s apartment.”

He runs.


	18. Bullet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ** **

Thirty-eight minutes.

There’s only two men outside Tony’s apartment. Both look tense. Both are waiting.

Gibbs should have known.

“Move,” he says; he’s gone cold because Fornell is standing there and he’s wearing the same expression he’d worn the day he’d told Gibbs that he was marrying Diane. Kali growls, low and in the back of her throat, and Gibbs doubts he heard her. She doesn’t want to be heard. There’s no second chances if he doesn’t get out from between Gibbs and his second right the fuck now.

“Jethro,” Fornell says, and Gibbs shoulders past. “He’s not in there!”

The door opens easily, wood splinters catching on the frame from where someone has kicked it in. _Tony’s not gonna like that,_ he thinks idly, looking down and finding boot marks and more wood on the pristine carpeting.

Kali lifts her nose and her ears flatten almost immediately. “Blood,” she says. He’d known she was going to say that, but it still makes his gut lurch and the ground tilt unevenly.

“Jethro,” says Fornell from miles away, a hand on Gibbs arm. He shakes it off.

“Where?” he asks Kali, but she just stares at him.

Stares at him, and then turns her muzzle. He follows where she’s pointing. It’s not Tony’s room, he already knows, because he can see Tony’s room up the hall. The time between him reaching his hand up to glide on the smooth wood of the door and that door responding to his touch and opening is an eternity. The time between stepping into that room and looking down onto a carefully painted crib on its side is barely a heartbeat; fractured glass crunching under his boot as he steps in and sees the delicate pattern of red making itself visible on the pastel blanket spilling from the open top of the crib. Not a lot, just a splash.

Far too much.

There’s bloodied shards in the crib, on the blanket. He tries not to visualize the window shattering and throwing glass down onto the unprotected infant and her dæmon.

He fails.

“Sniper shot through the window, into that.” Fornell is behind him. Gibbs watches from the corner of his eye as the man points to the splayed remains of the mobile McGee had given Kate and Tony for their baby shower. One of the cowboys now has a starburst hole in his smiling face, leaving only one eye and an ear visible under his oversized hat. Another horse is missing a leg. The rest are tangled beyond repair, thrown aside as though by an uncaring hand, the clip that had held them proudly aloft now sheared in two by the force of the bullet. “Looks like DiNozzo might have knocked the crib down himself, judging by that.”

Another gesture, and Gibbs looks down to the sweep of clear carpet where someone had used their leg to propel themselves through the glass, out of view of the window. He would have heard the window break, probably in the living room, run in here, taken cover, pushed the crib down from the ground so his head wasn’t in view…

“Stupid shot,” he says finally, turning his back on the macabre scene. He doesn’t need to look more to know what happened next. Rule #44: first things first, hide the women and children. “Glass could have deflected the bullet, hit the kid. Window makes the shot risky.”

Fornell eyes him like he’s a snarling dog, worried and wary and with one eye on the exit. “How do you know he wasn’t aiming for her?”

Gibbs doesn’t answer for a moment, scanning the apartment. He knows what he’d do in this situation.

Would Tony?

There’s no answer here, at least not one he can see.

“If he was aiming for her,” he says, pulling his phone out and shoving away the fear, the anger, anything that will cloud his judgement right now when he needs to be clear, “she’d be dead.”

And he has absolutely no doubt that Tony would go down with her rather than live without her.

 

* * *

 

Forty-five minutes.

McGee is alone when he gets out his car at the crime scene, and _that_ feels damn wrong to say.

It feels wrong to be alone as well.

“Tony’s car isn’t parked anywhere that I can see,” Chitta comments, climbing up to his head to get a higher look and scanning in both directions at the same time, his tail tight around McGee’s neck for balance.

“Yeah,” McGee says, turning on his heel and eyeing the lot for the distinctive tail end of DiNozzo’s mustang. “You reckon he left by choice?”

“Yup,” snaps a voice by McGee’s ear, and he swings around to find Gibbs striding towards him. “He’s running with Ari on his tail. We’re gonna find him first.”

“Before he joins Kate,” Kali adds. “Which is a real possibility if you don’t move your ass, McGee.”

McGee swallows hard, glances to the open door of Tony’s apartment, and follows his boss. He has to stop himself for looking over his shoulder for the two that should be by his side.

 

* * *

 

Two hours.

“Whatcha got for me, Abby?”

Abby doesn’t look around right away. This is the worst bit. Sure, there’s the days when she does her forensics magic and everything comes together, but there’s also the days like this, when she has… nadda. Zilch. Zip. And it’s always right at the worst possible time; when _everything_ is relying on her and she’s failing, she’s failed, she has to tell him that…

“Abs.” A hand on her arm. She sniffs. Loudly.

Fuck. She’s crying.

Mort whimpers.

“Nothing,” she says finally. “He’s a ghost, Gibbs. He’s just…”

Gibbs pulls her into a hug and she tries not to get snot on his shirt. “He’s doing us proud. He’s keeping Bea safe. We’ll find him.”

She stares at the ticking box on her screen. _No results._

This would be a really bad time for Gibbs to start being wrong.

 

* * *

 

_Agent DiNozzo has been MIA for eight hours. We request the FBI’s full support in bringing our agent home safely. It is believed that he is in imminent danger. He’s travelling with his seven-month-old daughter…_

The cursor blinks back at her, the email box taunting her with its contents. Happy second day as Director, Director. She’d known from the beginning that working with Gibbs was _not_ going to be easy. She’d not quite been prepared for… this.

“Well, on a scale of ‘worst first weeks’ possible, this is up there,” Bacchus says with almost perverse cheer. “What are you going to do about Gibbs? He can’t work this.”

She looks at him. The fox is sitting on her chair with his paws on her desk and sharp eyes tracking her every move. He already knows what she’s going to do; they both know. Hell, Gibbs knows. And he _knows_ she knows. Working with him is going to be… more difficult than she could ever imagine.

The door slams open before she can answer, and the man himself strides him. Bacchus switches his gaze to the black vixen at his heels, his tail twitching slightly in an almost wag.

“You can’t stop me looking for him,” Gibbs snarls, and his back is up. If he was a fox like his dæmon, he’d be bristling. He practically is. “Ari is after him and he’s one of us. I’m not stepping aside for some snot-nosed FBI shit—”

“I’m not going to stop you,” she interrupts. He pauses. “Your right. He’s one of us. If anyone can find him, it’s us. Where do you think he’s gone?”

Gibbs deflates. In a second, he goes from furious to broken. Bacchus drops from the chair and inches over to Kali, nodding in solidarity. She twitches her ears, as much of a reply as either of them expected.

“I don’t know,” Gibbs says finally. “I thought…”

_He’d go to you_ , Shepherd thinks suddenly, and she’s not sure why. She doesn’t know DiNozzo, she didn’t have the chance. But she knows what Gibbs looks like when he’s disappointed in someone, and his face is textbook right now.

“We’ll find him,” she says instead, consoling. Gibbs looks at her strangely.

“Yeah, we will,” he says, his voice sharp. “Before or after Ari puts a bullet in his skull?”

 

* * *

 

Twenty-eight hours after the bullet tore through Agent DiNozzo’s window, the Director calls Ziva into her office.

Thirty hours after, she finds herself walking into a dark room to find her half-brother slouched on a dusty couch with Septimus twining playfully around his extended forearm. She avoids looking at the arm with the snake attached. It is considered a great evil to glance upon another’s _shedim_. Likewise, Ari looks everywhere but the ground where her _bardelas_ stands, his tufted mane bristling and fangs bared.

“Shalom, sister,” Ari says, his eyes catching the light as he glances at her. “ _Mah ha'inyanim_?”

“ _Lo kol-kach tov_ ,” she replies, settling onto her heels and examining him carefully. “Agent DiNozzo.” She does not say anything more. This is the game they play, she and her brother, this game of pretence. She does not believe he killed Caitlin Todd. Or perhaps she does not want to.

But this? A bullet through a window to frighten a man he despises?

This is Ari all over.

“Ahhh, Agent DiNozzo,” Ari says quietly. She feels Farif prowling around her, his eyes locked on the snake. It would not be the first time the two _shedim_ have come to blows. Their relationship is… tumultuous.

It has not always been that way.

“How is the good agent?” Ari asks, looking at the roof and yawning, and she knows in that instant that the bullet is his.

“Missing, Ari. Where is he?”

His eyes narrow and Septimus spits. “Are you working for the Americans now? Why would you care where the man runs like a frightened mutt?”

She does not. But…

There is the child; the infant girl with the brown eyes and trusting smile. She is also endangered.

“If you killed the agent, Caitlin Todd,” she says quietly. “I will arrest you myself, Ari. But I do not believe you did. If Agent DiNozzo or his daughter dies? You will not live to see a cell.”

He looks amused. “Would you kill me? For an American? An American that, I remind you, I did not kill. I liked Caitlin. She was… feisty. Her death must be grieving Agent Gibbs very much.”

“I would not.” She makes sure he is looking in her in the eyes for her next statement. She makes sure the truth is written all over her face for him to read. “But I will hand you to Agent Gibbs.”

_Revenge will be your destruction_ , she thinks desperately, but they are a long way past such sibling proclamations. _Has this Gibbs harmed you so much you would burn our family for your cause?_

“I have no idea where Agent DiNozzo is,” Ari says finally. “If I see him I’ll be sure to pass on your regards.”

She leaves with a bitter taste in her mouth, and the knowledge that the years between them have left her brother unrecognizable to her. Made him into the kind of man who would possibly fire a bullet into the skull of a mother just to prove a point. She hopes she is wrong about him.

She doubts she is.

 

* * *

 

They come for Caitlin three days after Anthony flees. He finishes preparing her for her final journey with a heavy heart. They’ll bury her tomorrow.

“My dear, you would be so _furious_ with Anthony for missing your funeral,” he says, smoothing his hand over the surface on the unzipped body bag. Then he reconsiders. “Or perhaps not. I don’t think you are the kind of person who would take a child to a funeral, even if that funeral was the child’s mother, and especially if that mother is you. No. You are not the kind of person to expect grief, are you?”

“We do grieve you though,” Netta adds, almost too quiet, her claws scrabbling on the metal leg of the stool as she pulls herself upright. “We do, very much. As does Anthony, as does Fitz. I think… I think you would perhaps be proud of them both. They have been dreadfully clever, to evade Jethro for so long.”

“Never mind that, Netta,” Ducky scolds, nudging her down before she can topple the stool. “We mustn’t fuss over what cannot be changed. We will have our own, private, memorial when Anthony returns. A much kinder atmosphere for young Elizabeth to say goodbye. How does that sound, Caitlin?”

She doesn’t answer. But then, they rarely do.

 

* * *

 

He sees Kate’s boss standing by her grave, and he has to force his feet to move towards the man. He remembers him from the hospital, the day Bea was born. Him and his black fox.

“Is now really the time?” Mom says, tugging at his sleeve. She probably thinks he’s going to lose his temper again. He’s not. He doesn’t have any anger left. Maybe he buried it all with his baby sister. “He looks awful. This must be terrible for them as well.”

“They’re not the ones burying their daughter,” Dad snaps, and James uses the ensuing tears from the both of them to slip away. Cold blue eyes meet his unblinkingly as he approaches him. Ferox shifts, her talons cutting into the fine material of the suit that James has no intentions on keeping. He doesn’t need to see this day every time he opens his fucking closet. He’s already going to see it every time he looks at Rachel or Bea or…

Bea. He swallows.

“Haven’t found them,” Agent Gibbs opens with, and his voice is scratchy and dry. He’s pale under the purple shadows ringing his eyes. James sweeps his gaze over the motley collection of people around him, Kate’s co-workers. They all look the same; exhausted. “We’re still looking. We won’t stop looking.” He moves slightly, as though to protect the woman with black pigtails and blotchy make-up behind him from James’ wrath.

But he’s not angry.

“Thank you,” he says simply, and looks down at the open grave containing his sister. His heart aches, a physical pain almost. Fuck… if Kate knew how much, she’d be so damn gleeful. _Knew you cared, idiot_ , her voice mocks him. _Not so tough now, are you?_ “I know you will.”

They have to.

They can’t lose Bea as well.

 

* * *

 

There’s an instant aura of ‘oh crap’ when he walks into Abby’s lab. He’s been pushing them, pushing them hard, but the looks on her and McGee’s faces aren’t the kind of looks they get when they have good news. They are, however, the kind of looks they get when they’re both guilty as shit. She turns to face him and she’s got her phone pressed so hard against her ear it’s like she’s trying to force herself through the mic to reach the person on the other end.

And he knows exactly who it is.

“Come home,” she says, desperate and he wants to grab the phone, but he can’t, he _can’t,_ not when DiNozzo would have stayed if it wasn’t for him. “Please, Tony! We can stop Ari… no… no! That’s not true. But…” She closes her eyes and he’s thankful because her expression is tortured with them open.

McGee is hunched over the keyboard, fingers flying, and Gibbs has seen enough frantic traces to know he’s trying to track the phone. By the look on his face, he’s… close.

There’s a flicker of hope that Gibbs clings to.

Abby changes tack. “You know we love you, right?” she says, and she’s crying now. He’s going to kick DiNozzo’s ass for making her cry. “We just want you safe and home, with us. With _me_ , Tony, don’t you know how much I need you?”

McGee bolts upright, his chair clattering to the ground, and Gibbs sees the coordinates flashing on the screen behind him. Norfolk.

He’s in _Norfolk._

They run.

 

* * *

 

He’s not there.

“If we tracked him,” McGee had said uneasily in the car, fiddling with his shirt cuff. “You know that anyone else could have as well, right, Boss?”

He hadn’t answered, but he had put his foot down.

Tony’s not there, and of _course_ it’s the goddamn roof. Because this is always going to be the place he thinks of when it comes to saying goodbye, isn’t it?  He doesn’t intend on this being a goodbye, but Tony sure fucking does. As does whoever beat them there.

Ten guesses who.

“Boss!” McGee hisses when Gibbs strides out onto the rooftop, towards the cement that has only a whisper of a shadow where she’d lain now that a week’s worth of sun and weather has beaten down on it. “Ari could be…”

“He’s not going to shoot me unless he can look me in the eye while he does it,” Gibbs snaps, because there’s something already on the spot. “Sit your ass in the doorway, McGee. You don’t have that pleasure.” It’s a badge and a cell phone. Both Tony’s. There’s a note shoved underneath. He doesn’t bother putting a glove on to pull it out, and he regrets that once he sees the handwriting because it’s _not_ Tony’s.

_While I am free, he’ll keep running._ _Until you have me, you won’t have them. Either of them._

_Happy hunting, Agent Gibbs._


	19. Running

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fight and flight has a rarely mentioned brother: freeze.

And, for a split second upon walking in to find the bullet in the wall above his daughter, Tony freezes. It’s Fitz who reacts. It’s Fitz who drops and army crawls to the crib containing their screaming daughter and her screaming dæmon. It’s Fitz who shoulders the crib to the ground and grabs Bea by one flailing leg, dragging her, blanket and all, to the door. There’s blood on her when Tony takes her from his dæmon with shaking hands. It’s not hers. When Lex follows, crying still, there’s glass in his leg dribbling blood in a wobbly trail behind him. Tony picks him up too. And then he runs, because the bullet is a warning.

_She’s next._

Tony has always been great at running.

 

* * *

 

“What have you got, Abs?”

“We found his car. He’s sold it. Cash.”

 

* * *

 

He sells his car at the first town he finds that has a dealer that doesn’t ask questions. He picks up a white sedan, a family car. Boring. Dull. Completely unnoticeable. There’s room for Fitz to sprawl in the back and for the two small bags that are all he’s retained of his life. Almost all of it is Bea’s stuff. He could have grabbed his clothes. He could have pawned them for a small fortune. Money isn’t an issue now, but it might be. He doesn’t know how long this will take.

He does know that he doesn’t plan on stopping until Ari is six feet under with a bullet in his skull. He hopes that in this, at least, Gibbs doesn’t fail him.

He drives. He doesn’t think about what he’s leaving behind.

 

* * *

 

“He’s emptied his accounts. All of them. We’ve got him on video in the bank and then he leaves and we’ve got nothing.”

“How much did he take?”

“Enough to disappear.”

 

* * *

 

It’s not that he actually had a plan for ‘there’s a sniper killing my family members’, but he thinks maybe a little bit of Gibbs’ boy-scoutiness has rubbed off on him, because he barely has to think about his next move. He doesn’t really want to do it, fuck no, but there’s only so far he can go with the small fortune of notes on his backseat. For one thing, it’s gonna make things hairy as shit if he gets pulled over. And if there’s one person he can trust to be dodgy, it’s his old man.

“Tony,” DiNozzo Senior says upon looking up to find the proverbial son standing in the doorway. “Good lord. What are you doing here?”

Tony opens his mouth and nothing comes out. Bea solves it, shifting in his arms and letting out an angry squall. Hungry. He’s going to need to buy more formula. His dad stands up and stares at Bea, frowning slightly.

“Dad,” Tony says weakly. “Meet your granddaughter. We’re in trouble.”

 

* * *

 

**To: unsaved contact**

**If you tell Gibbs about this, I’ll go dark. You want to help us, keep it to yourself.**

**From: unsaved contact**

**Ok. Wt do u nd?**

**To: unsaved contact**

**Names.**

 

* * *

 

Tony watches his dad’s shrike tanager dart about the room, beady eyes locked on Bea. There’s a fierce kind of interest on the tiny orange bird’s face. When he looks at his dad, the same interest is shown there.

“How old is she?” the elder DiNozzo asks stiffly, pouring himself another glass from the decanter. The edges clink together as he misjudges the distance. “E… Elizabeth, I mean.”

“Seven months,” Tony answers, his voice low, and there’s an unhappy kind of weight in his stomach that feels almost like jealously. His dad had never looked at him with this much… anything, really. He takes a mouthful of his drink, almost too much, and chokes back the burning when he inhales some. “Dad, look…”

“Elizabeth Kelly,” the man says, leaning forward and tapping his finger on his glass. “Beautiful name. Her mother?”

“Dead,” Tony snaps, almost too harshly, and he sees his father close his eyes and lean back. There’s pain in the lines of his face that Tony’s never seen before.

“I’m so sorry, son,” he says. Tony reminds himself that this is only one faucet of his father, this kindly face. It’s not him all the way through. He doesn’t _love_. Or if he does, it’s not high on his priority list. “I know it’s hard raising a child alone…”

“Really?” Tony says, contemplating another drink. He’d better not. They need to drive tonight. “Don’t remember a whole lott’a raising going on, unless you have another son somewhere I don’t know about.”

His dad flinches. Then he straightens, and the interest disappears, replaced with the coolly calculating con-man that Tony’s much more comfortable with. He doesn’t look again at Bea. “How much danger are you in?”

“Enough.”

_Tap tap tap_ goes his father’s finger on the table. Tony twitches with every tap. It’s not helping the anxiousness that settles over him like a blanket any time they end up staying still. Gibbs would be handling this so much better. Gibbs would…. Gibbs isn’t here.

_Get it together, DiNozzo._

“What do you want to do?” His dad leans in and looks at him, mouth firm. “What do you need?”

That’s a simple answer. He needs to do what DiNozzos do best.

“To disappear.”

 

* * *

 

“Mr. DiNozzo. You received our call about your son?”

“Yes, yes, of course or I wouldn’t be returning it, would I? No, I haven’t seen him. I have no interest in seeing him. I’m not surprised you’ve lost him – he’s just like his mother. Flighty.”

“You understand the danger he’s in?”

“Oh, pah. He’ll be fine. He’s a snake that one; he’ll wriggle his way out of trouble without a scratch. If you excuse me, I have business to attend to that’s much more pressing than my worthless son.”

“Sir, I must—sir? Sir? He hung up…”

 

* * *

 

“We don’t do room service after seven p.m. You want food, you gotta call before that.” Tony winces as the lady behind the counter sniffs loudly, wiping her hand against her nose, and shoves the battered door key across the counter. “Breakfast after six. Checkout before ten or you’ll be charged another day Mr…”

“DiNardo. Mr. DiNardo.” Tony picks the keys up gingerly between two fingers, and tries not to examine too hard the snail-trail of snot on the back of the woman’s hand. “Thank you. You’ve been an absolute _delight_.” This is what you get when you pay cash, apparently. Bea whimpers from her carrier on the floor where Fitz is standing a cautious guard. The woman peers over the counter at her. Tony prepares himself for the inevitable, _oh how cute! She looks just like you! What a dear!_

Any minute now.

“Your kid makes a mess you get charged for that too,” the woman says. “No crayon on the walls or mud on the carpets, got it?”

“She doesn’t even walk yet,” Tony mutters. “I think your walls are safe.”

Bitch.

He bets this place has rats, too.

 

* * *

 

“This is Special Agent Gibbs. Leave a message.”

“…”

“Tony? Tony is that you? We can stop him. You don’t—”

_Click._

 

* * *

 

The couple through the wall start off the night by having a wonderfully loud argument that ends with Bea screaming her head off. Tony feeds her, puts her down for the night, and she finally falls asleep.

Then they have another argument; same result. It’s three a.m., she’s slept for two goddamn hours, and he’s pretty sure this is what it is to go insane. The couple fall silent for a bit.

“Thank fuck,” he says to Fitz, who shifts slightly on the bed. Bea’s next to her, a tiny shape on the expanse of the queen double, one of her hands twisted through the big dæmon’s fur. Fitz doesn’t reply, just glances at him and then returns her gaze to the door warily. He ignores her. It’s not paranoia if you know someone is after you.

There’s a distinctive moan through the wall.

“Fantastic,” Tony grumbles, the cheap chair creaking as he leans back in it, arching his back against the thin wood. “Just what I needed. What do they make these walls out of fucking _cardboard?_ ”

Fitz says nothing.

They begin to argue again halfway through, which is almost worse than the moans because now Tony is thinking about Kate and he’s far too tired to deal with that train of thought right now. What would Kate do if she was here?

Probably kill Ari.

Bea begins to cry.

Tony sympathises.

 

* * *

 

Kali jumps up onto the couch with him one night instead of sleeping in her usual place on the armchair opposite. He blinks down at her; a black shapeless form on his chest looking at him in the uneven light from the window.

“Get lonely?” he asks gruffly, easing himself flatter so she can lay down, a light, warm weight.

She doesn’t answer, not at first, just circles into a ball and tucks her muzzle under her white-tipped tail. There’s silence, until; “I miss them.”

He does too.

 

* * *

 

Bea doesn’t really fit in the sink that well, but Tony’s not putting her in the bath. Not this bath. He’s pretty sure he’s seen toilets cleaner than this bath. Even Lex looks disgusted by it.

“La’aa,” she sings to herself, patting the top of the water, eternally happy. Not a care in the world. He rests one hand against her back so she doesn’t manage to tumble out of the cramped sink and uses his other to trickle warm water over her dark curls. Lex sneezes, wrapped in a towel between Fitz’s legs. He went first, after discovering said disgusting bath and attempting to clean it. With his belly.

Kids are gross.

“Yep,” Tony says huskily, his eyes dry and itchy after a night of listening to Romeo and Juliet consummating their grand love next door. “La is right, bug. I don’t know what la means, but I’m sure it’s really profound. You’d put Ducky to shame with your verbal…” He trails off. “I don’t miss them,” he says, to any of the three in the room who’ll listen. “This is fine. Hey, on our own, we can do this, right? We’d do this even if we didn’t have crazy Ari on our tails.”

Bea looks at him. “Da?” She sounds uncertain.

“You and me both, kiddo,” he says, flicking her nose. “You and me both.”

 

* * *

 

He walks into Abby’s lab and she has Tony’s license blown up on the plasma. When he puts her Caf-pow down next to her hand, she almost falls off the stool.

Guilty as hell.

“Nice picture,” he comments dryly, glancing at the half-grin barely restrained on DiNozzo’s face. He’s never actually seen his licence before. He’d managed to at least look somewhat serious for his employee ID. “Whatcha doing Abs?”

“Just… looking,” Abby lies, her eyes flicking away. He sighs inwardly. She’s never been able to lie to him. Instead, she changes the subject. “Hey, did you know Fitz isn’t actually just Fitz? Tony never told us that.”

Gibbs stares at her, then looks up at the screen. There’s a holographic image of Fitz underneath Tony’s grinning mug. _Fitzperte - Canis familiaris._ He hadn’t known that.

He’s starting to wonder how much he actually does know.

 

* * *

 

On the fifteenth day, or maybe sixteenth—Tony’s not doing so good with his cognitive functions right now—a car backfires while he’s about to unstrap Bea from her car-seat and take her into the zillionth flea bitten hotel they’ve had the joy of staying in. At least, once he calms down he realizes it was probably a car backfiring.

“Are you okay?” someone asks, and Tony manages to grab Fitz before she lunges at them. He blinks and he’s crouched behind the door of his car holding Bea close enough to his chest that her angry squalls are muffled by his coat.

He’s shaking.

_Hello freeze, my old friend._

“I’m fine,” he lies, and straps Bea back in. They sleep in the car that night and he wonders if Gibbs has caught Ari yet. He wonders if he’ll go home when he does.

 

* * *

 

“Gibbs?”

Gibbs pauses, not looking up from the hull of his boat. He’s not in the mood. He’s in the very opposite of the mood. “What do you want, Jen?”

She steps down the stairs cautiously, her eyes locked on his wall. The wall he’s covered in his case. The case. The only thing that matters right now.

“Ari Haswari,” she reads, scanning the APB pinned in the middle with his old fishing knife. He was outta pins.

It’s a good look on him.

“What about him?” Gibbs snaps, dropping the sandpaper. “Don’t tell me I can’t work this, Jen. You know I won’t listen. It’s been three weeks.”

“You need proof it was him, Gibbs. You can’t be a one-person manhunt.” She settles on the step, and he can see a look in her eyes her recognises. She’s here with news he’s not going to like. Kali growls at Bacchus, and the other fox wisely keeps his distance.

“I’m not one person,” Gibbs says softly. “My team…”

“Has to stop looking for him.”

Silence. Gibbs leans back against the table, feeling his nails bite into the soft wood. Like hell he will. “Ari killed Kate. He shot at an infant. My _goddaughter._ What more do you want, Jenny? You want me dead? Is that what it’s going to take to realize he’s dirty?”

She closes her eyes, and it’s then he sees the folded paper in her hands. “Not Haswari, Gibbs. I want that bastard caught too. Preferably with something to nail him for Todd’s death.” _No._ He doesn’t want to hear what she’s about to say. He doesn’t know how to stop her. “You can’t use NCIS resources to look for DiNozzo. Not anymore. He’s no longer a missing person.”

Kali snarls this time, arching her back with her tail bristling. Bacchus backs away.

“He’s not here,” Gibbs says with a calm he doesn’t feel. His nails rattle against the table, almost like his hands are trembling. He doesn’t look at them. “He’s not here and I don’t know where he is. That’s sounds pretty damn missing to me, don’t you think?”

She stands and holds the paper out. He doesn’t take it; watches as she steps down and lays it on the table next to his abandoned glass. “This came through today, from his father’s offices. It’s Tony’s official resignation from NCIS. He’s requested his privacy and declined our offer of protection. You can’t keep hunting him, Jethro, he wants to be left alone. It’s stalking.” The stairs groan under her weight as she walks back up them, shoulders stiff and face a mask. “I’m sorry. Let him go.”

 

* * *

 

His dad comes in handy for once. Tony glances down at the note scrawled on the back of the envelope in his dad’s handwriting, matching the address on the front with the sun-faded sign by the front of his parked car.

_Geoff Britten,_

_Give him my name, not your own. He’ll find you a place to stay. Do not trust him beyond this. Do not accept work from him. I can assure you, it will not be the type of work that keeps you out from under the eye of the law._

“Is this a good idea?” Fitz asks, her voice hoarse from disuse.

“Got any better ones? I can’t go hunting a sniper with an infant strapped to my back, Fitz. And we can’t raise her in a car.”

She blinks slowly at him. “So, we’re trusting Gibbs to take him out for us while we hide like scared mice?”

His breath catches. “Isn’t that exactly what we are?” he finally says, gripping the door handle. “Wait here with Bea. The office is just over there.”

Before the door shuts on her, he hears her parting comment. “Welcome to our new life as cowards, Bea.”

He grits his teeth and doesn’t look back.


	20. Hiding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bea is obstinately silent in the backseat.

“You can’t sulk forever, kid,” Tony says, glancing at her in the rear-view mirror as he pulls into his parking spot. “I’m telling you. You don’t put juice on Lucky Charms. I’m pretty sure that makes you some kinda cereal killer.”

She huffs.

“Whatever,” he mutters, slamming the car into park. “Should ‘a put you up for adoption, like Annie. You could sing about your juice addiction until some rich guy adopts you. And I bet he doesn’t let you juice up your cereal either.”

She remains silent as he unbuckles her and picks her up, deliberately going stiff to make it even more awkward. Lex slinks after as he tosses her over his shoulder and walks towards the office door, the stuffed fox she’s clinging grimly onto bumping against his shoulder-blade. Fitz shoves the smaller dæmon along with her nose, rolling her eyes at the obstinate expression on the pup’s face. Great start to the morning. Real great start. She didn’t get her temper from him, that’s for sure. He’s blaming Kate for this.

“Morning,” Claire chirps as he swings the office door in, careful not to let his daughter’s head bump on the doorframe. That will really get him on the shit list. “Hello, Ellie! What are you doing all the way up there?”

Tony dumps Bea on the floor, earning an indignant squeak. “She’s a grumble bug this morning,” he warns the perky receptionist, handing the bag across the counter. “I’m the worst dad ever. A real Hitler. Wanna tell Claire why you’re a grumble bug?”

“I’m not,” Bea says, looking up with her brown eyes full of tears and her cheeks ruddy. Even better; she’s probably getting sick. “Not a grumble bug. I want juice. Why can’t I?”

“Juice on what?” Tony says, nudging her with his toe. “Don’t withhold.”

“No.” She looks back down, scowling.

Yep. Kate all over.

Claire has that look that people get when they’re trying really hard not to laugh. Tony bets she wouldn’t be laughing if she was the one dealing with a three-year-old with a bad case of ‘thinks her dad is the worst.’ “Oh, well,” she says, standing and opening the door for Bea to walk slowly through. “I happen to have juice in the back, and colouring books. We can colour together while your daddy works, okay?”

“‘Kay.” His kid doesn’t even look at him as she walks off, dragging her toy behind her. Tony is looking forward to her being a teenager, he really is.

“Bye, Ellie,” he shouts after her.

No reply.

“Say goodbye to your dad,” Claire scolds, and Tony hears a loud sigh and the sound of feet being dragged on the carpet as she shuffles back to the door. “Say it properly.”

“Bye, Daddy,” she says. Tony swings the door to the counter open and ducks down, running his thumb over her cheek quickly. She’s not that warm. She’s fine. He kisses her twice, just to be sure, before scooting her back to the door. He doesn’t miss the smile that she tries to hide. “Bye, Perte.” Fitz licks her quickly, earning a giggle, before returning to her stiff-legged stance.

It takes him three goes to get the child latch off the door to the workshop, Claire sniggering from behind her painted nails the whole time. Keeping his dignity intact, he doesn’t respond, swinging the door open to let Fitz pad silently through, the noise of the shop hitting them.

“Morning, Tony,” someone calls, a head bobbing up from behind a green sedan. An opossum bounds past, dragging a wrench behind it, dropping it down where her human can reach an oily hand out from under a hood to grab it. An arc of sparks shoots up in one corner, leaving an electrical tang to the air. Fitz shakes her head irritably, her dislike of the noise almost palpable. He’d have thought that after six months in this shithole, she’d have adjusted. Apparently, they’re not as adaptable as he’d always thought.

There’s a new car in his bay. Sweet looking lime green Mustang.

Just like his old one.

“Brings a nostalgic kinda tear to my eye,” he tells Fitz, circling the car and examining it hungrily. A head pops out from the passenger side window, grinning widely at him with a mouth that’s more gap than teeth.

“You like, Tony?” Rabbit asks, gesturing to the car and almost knocking the side window off. Tony winces. “She’s sweet, yeah?”

Tony rounds the hood and almost sprawls over the shaggy bulk of a brown bear that raises a bleary eye to glare at him. “Jeez, Rabbit,” he grumbles, stepping back. “You ever going to tell me why they call you Rabbit when your dæmon’s a bear?”

Rabbit shrugs. “Got big ears,” he replies cheerfully, reaching over with his foot and nudging the driver’s side door open. “Get in here and check her out. Got your goods for you, too.” He peers about, widening his eyes and ducking back into the car to gesture with a dirty hand. Tony sighs. He’s really not sneaky.

“You know,” he says, gingerly easing himself down onto the seat. The leather groans under him anyway. The seats are that well-worn kind of loved. His car had been that kind of loved, “calling them ‘goods’ makes it sound suspicious.”

“It _is_ suspicious. We could get on a list. One of those federal lists.” The folder makes a _thwap_ when he tosses it onto Tony’s lap. “Class A stuff in that folder, man. At great personal risk.”

Tony snorts, flicking through the folder and feeling his mouth twitch slightly at the contents. “I’m sure Ellie will dig it. Thanks, Rabbit.”

There’s a thump as someone slaps the side of the car, leaning in through Rabbit’s window and looking down at the two of them. “Not paying you two to fuck around,” Geoff grumbles, narrowing his eyes. “Bootleg DVDs, Tony? That’s not very pious of you.”

“I’m not very pious,” Tony answers, closing the DVD folder and tucking it next to him on the seat. “Problem, Geoff?”

“Need someone to make a delivery. You my man, Rabbit. Don’t mess it up.”

Rabbit groans. “But I’m halfway through this, Boss. I’ll lose my place. Can’t you send Tony?”

Geoff shakes his head sharply. “Nup. Need some bulk on this one. Perte just doesn’t quite have that. ‘Sides, Tony likes to keep squeaky clean, isn’t that right, DiNardo?”

Tony doesn’t answer.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Geoff says, and walks off. Rabbit sighs and follows, waving over his shoulder back at Tony.

“Twenty bucks this car is stolen,” Fitz says as soon as the shambling rear of Rabbit’s bear vanishes through the door.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell,” Tony warns her, reaching for the tools Rabbit abandoned, “and I’m not taking that bet, Fitz.”

“Perte,” she corrects him softly, before sitting with her gaze locked on the doorway.

Guarding.

 

* * *

 

He’s done too many of these drives. The kind of drive that brings the knowledge of his failures crashing down onto his shoulders. He can’t help but wonder why others get so little time when he’s got far too much of it.

He goes home to be alone, but that’s not how it works out.

The sun is hot on his shoulders when he swings the car door closed, and Abby is sitting on his porch staring at her knees. She doesn’t look up as he walks across the dry grass to her.

“Door’s unlocked, Abs,” he says. Mort slips onto her lap, letting her wrap her arms around him and giving Gibbs room to sit down next to her. He sighs, bumping his shoulder against her. “Could have waited inside.”

She looks up at him, green eyes swimming in tears she’s barely holding back. “Why do we keep losing the people we love?” she asks finally, hugging Mort close.

Kali inches up, folding her ears back sadly. “You know we don’t have an answer to that,” she says, resting her muzzle on his leg and staring at her. Gibbs wraps one arm around Abby and one around his fox, and they watch the evening fade into night in silence.

_Sorry, Jen,_ he thinks, closing his eyes. _Should have been there for you._

He’s not going to make that mistake again. He’s keeping his family close.

No more losses.

 

* * *

 

It’s a warm kind of night, which is good because Tony’s pretty sure the heating in this hole hasn’t bothered to work a day in its life.

“I don’t want soup,” Bea says, poking at the bowl with her spoon and kicking the chair restlessly. “Tastes funny.”

“That’s because it’s made with duck beaks and horse toes,” Tony mutters, picking up the battered can and squinting at the ingredients. He’d gotten it on special. It was probably packed around the same time the heating last worked…

“Really?” says Bea, a fierce kind of interest in her voice, and Tony sighs.

“No.”

“Oh.” She sounds disappointed. His kid’s a weirdo.

“I could eat a duck,” Lex announces, shifting into said duck and flapping awkwardly up onto the table, almost tipping Bea’s soup over. “A whole duck. I could.”

“No you can’t,” Bea argues, scrunching her face up. “Gross. You can’t eat what you are.”

Lex blinks and he’s a puppy again with a wildly waving tail. The soup goes flying. Tony watches it drip down the wall and considers, once again, adoption. Maybe someone will adopt him if he asks sweet enough…

“I can!” Lex demands, spinning and almost falling off the table, turning into a cat at the last minute and just barely managing the landing. “Perte, can you eat a duck?”

“No.” Fitz is by the door. She’s there enough that she’s worn a line in the carpet from where she paces; a regular semi-circle around the room from the door to the window and back to the door. She doesn’t say much anymore, ignoring the smaller dæmon as he tries to bat at her tail.

Tony adds the empty bowl of soup to the growing pile of dishes in the sink and half-heartedly kicks a tea-towel over the mess. Another problem for future-DiNozzo.

Sorry, future _DiNardo_.

“Want to watch a movie?” he asks Bea, glancing up at the clock and mentally counting how many hours of staring at the ceiling and twitching at every noise he has before he has to get up and do this whole day all over again.

She nods, then looks at her soup-splattered fingers. Maybe a bath first. “Still hungry,” she says sadly.

He gets another can down. This one has a vague picture of what could be a chicken on it. “Hey look,” he says with a forced happiness that makes her smile widely. “Made from actual duck!”

“Yay!” she cheers, beaming and holding her hand down for Lex to lick.

 

* * *

 

_“The funeral was held this morning for NCIS Director Jenny Shepard, who died when her Georgetown home was destroyed by fire…”_

Gibbs turns the set off, casting his basement into darkness.

“Leroy?” Kali asks, sitting upright. She seems… smaller. As though the loss they’ve all borne has somehow diminished her. Gibbs can see how. He’s starting to feel real small too. That’s part and parcel of losing so many people he should be able to protect.

There’s footsteps overhead. Gibbs hefts the remote in his hand, fighting the bitterness he wears as a second coat these days. He waits.

“Gibbs?” Ziva’s tread is light. Her cheetah’s is lighter. Neither makes a sound as they pad down the stairs. It’s a far cry from Fitz and Tony, who used to fall rather than walk down the damn things… He has to swallow that thought back; shove it to the back of his mind with Shannon and Kelly and Kate and Jenny. That part of his mind is getting crowded.

“Ziva,” he says shortly, turning his back on her to hide any lingering emotion on his face. She’s a part of his team, she has been for two years now. That doesn’t make it any easier to look at her and not see Ari lingering behind her like a storm.

“Are you okay?”

He ignores that. She’s more human that she was when she’d started, but sympathy still doesn’t sit right on her. “Word on Ari?” He doesn’t need to look at her to know she’s looking at the wall covered in the yellowed pages of The Case. Ari’s APB is still there, torn from where it’s slid down the knife. His forehead is neatly shorn in half now. It’s a damn good look on him. Gibbs looks forward to the day it becomes a reality.

He turns now and faces her, the anger replacing the grief. She’s tracing a map with her fingers. Tony’s map. The places Gibbs has tracked him but never found him; always five steps behind. Well, he did learn from the best after all.

“There is no report of him entering the US. There is no report of him leaving it. He is a ghost. No one in Israel will speak his name, he is a traitor to them. His refusal to show himself has cemented their belief of his part in Agent Todd’s death. My father…”

“It’s alright, David.” It’s not. But her voice had hitched, just the tiniest amount, and he’d remembered that he’s not the only one who’d buried a friend today. “It’s okay. We’ll get him.”

It’s an empty promise, and she knows it.

 

* * *

 

Bea’s a hot, damp weight against his side, arms and legs thrown outward like she hasn’t a care in the world, snoring blissfully. One of her hands is tightly squeezing the fuzzy tail of the stuffed fox she’s had since she was a baby, the other inching towards her mouth. Tony stretches carefully, the muted screen of the portable DVD player Rabbit had given Bea for her birthday flickering and fragmenting Nemo’s face as the power cord shifts. Brakes screech outside, someone shouts, two cats are fighting. The wind bangs the fire escape against the window. He’s never gotten used to the noise of this neighbourhood. Every scrape could be a bipod being set up; every thump outside could be a boot on the thin grating of the escape.

He glances into the kitchen, the dim light of the digital clock set on the fridge. 02:35. Brilliant. Four hours until the bug wakes up and wants breakfast. Milk is probably off. Payday’s not for three days. Maybe she’ll get her wish, and he’ll have to juice it up for her. She won’t eat it dry.

“You could call Senior,” Fitz says softly from the doorway. She’s just visible from his bed on the foldout couch he and Bea share. There’s a bedroom, just one, but if he’s paranoid now, it’s four times as bad when she’s a room away from him. “He’ll wire money through.”

“We don’t have much of ours left,” Tony answers, keeping his voice pitched low so the rumble doesn’t wake the kid. “He’ll send his own. And you know he’ll want repayment.”

“Not monetary…”

“No. He’ll want us to work for him. You think what we do now is dodgy? It’s peanuts compared to dad’s ‘business’ ventures, you know that.”

She gets up and pads past on her usual circuit. The wind of her passing ripples the pages of the children’s books piled on the wobbly coffee table next to the couch. Tony leans over, pausing when Bea shifts and mutters something in her sleep, sliding the bottom book out. He knows what it is. He keeps it close because even though he wants to forget, Bea deserves the right to know them.

He flicks through the pages of Kate’s sketchbook, only pausing once on the half-finished drawing of Gibbs that was the last one Kate had ever drawn. The photo of Bea and Kate is tucked in the pages over the top of it.

He trails his fingers over it and wonders what they’re doing now.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs snaps awake in the middle of the night and his gut is going crazy.

“What’s wrong?” Kali asks, sitting upright and staring at him. “Why are we worried?”

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly, picking up his phone and putting it down again restlessly, drumming his fingers on the table. “I don’t know.”

He doesn’t get any more sleep that night.

 

* * *

 

He jolts awake at 03:04 to his phone humming near his head. He’s still half asleep when he answers.

“Yeah, Boss?” He can see Fitz shaking herself awake by the door, posture groggy but still watchful.

“Since when have you called me Boss, DiNardo?” Geoff. Tony groans. He must be late for work, overslept, _again_. He glances at the clock. 03:05.

What the fuck.

“Geoff? What do you want? It’s three in the morning.”

“Yeah.” The man sounds pissed. Tony’s gut starts churning. He doesn’t like Geoff’s temper. It’s quick to start and slow to fade, and it makes him pushy. It makes him do stupid things. _Don’t be stupid_ , Tony hums in his head, looking down at his sleeping daughter as Geoff rambles on. “Yeah, look, you know I’ve done a lot for you, right? Stuck my neck out. Keep finding you work when you mouth off to the wrong guy or someplace doesn’t feel right so you walk out. I deal with your paranoid bullshit and your dæmon either pissing off half my clients or scaring the shit outta the rest. You know I do that for you, Tony, yeah?”

Uh oh. “What do you want?”

“That piece of shit—I swear this is the last time—Rabbit fell through on me. This is a big gig for me. I need to have people at my back. I got a goat dæmon, she don’t scare no one, and Rabbit’s pissed off somewhere, fucking bastard. You, your Perte, she can be nasty. It’s a small job, two hours max. Cash in hand. I know you need money. Kids are expensive.”

His mouth is dry and he can see Fitz baring her teeth in displeasure from here. “No. I’ve got Ellie. I can’t…”

“Couple of hours, Tony. You’ll be back before the kid even wakes up. Got my word on that. You can’t keep doing this, not after what I done for you… you need me more than I need you.”

“You’re not going to fire me.” He won’t. He needs a presentable face for his businesses, and that man is Tony. He’s the only one in the place without a rap sheet.

“Nah… nah. I won’t.” There’s a dangerous kind of tone to his voice now. The phone slips against Tony’s ear, sweat dripping down his neck. This is the kind of feeling he gets when things are going wrong. Have gone wrong. “But you know, if you want, I can have someone babysit for you. I’ll get them to swing by, drop in. You come do my job. They watch the kid. When it’s done, they part ways. Nice and easy.”

Tony says nothing. Bea coughs.

“I can’t lose this deal, Tony. You going to come to me, or do I come to you?”

One phone call to Abby and he’ll have the whole of NCIS coming down on this apartment like a ton of bricks. But, he’s sixteen hours away from DC. They wouldn’t get here in time.

“I’ll come to you.”

The line goes dead, leaving Tony to stare at Bea and wonder how he’s ever going to make up for this betrayal.

He misses Kate.

 

* * *

 

He goes to work and spends the night tapping away at his paperwork. He pulls up Tony’s employee file. He closes it again. He pulls up Ari’s information. He leaves that open.

Then he lays under his desk with his head resting on Kali, and dozes off waiting for the day.

 

* * *

 

It goes fine. It all goes fine, of course it does. Geoff is unstable and ill-tempered and so fucking dangerous, but he’s good at what he does. And what he does is manipulate people. He gets their weaknesses and he chains people to him using them.

Tony’s isn’t even that hard to find.

And it goes fine. All Tony has to do is look mildly intimidating, a physical reminder that Geoff isn’t here alone. Fitz does most of the work for him and fortunately, she’s the biggest dæmon there. He’ll be home in time for juice cereal. Bea won’t even know he’s gone. But there’s that. He’s done it now. He’s done the one thing that says more than anything that he’s lost control of this.

_She’s three and you left her,_ screams his brain as he follows Geoff into the warehouse, his gun an uncomfortably familiar weight at his hip. _She’s three. She’s three! What kind of a father are you?_

Fitz is a mess. She hides it well. She growls when needed, she bristles, she snarls. But she’s twitchy, shaking, and there’s a gleam to her eyes that tells him she’s just as freaked out about Bea as he is. They need to go home. They need to be home. It’s a burning need that overwhelms everything else. And, maybe, that’s why he doesn’t recognise the voice until the man is in front of them, turning to face them, looking at them. But then, why would he recognise him? To Tony, the man was barely a blip on his radar. Just another face. Just another case.

To Albert Simmons, Tony’s the cold-hearted bastard who’d booked him to get to another man.

“What the...?” Albert says, and Tony takes a second to try and think why his face looks so familiar and another second to realize that it doesn’t really matter because familiar is so fucking bad when he’s supposed to have left Anthony DiNozzo behind. There’s a pretty red-coated weasel on his shoulder.

Tony remembers.

“Hey!” the man says, keeps going, and Tony starts to back away but there’s enough people around and enough guns that he’s not going to make it. “I know you. You’re a fed! Yeah, you are, Agent DiNozzo, right? Hey, he’s a cop!”

All eyes fall on him and Tony gets the feeling that something is ending tonight.

“Not anymore,” he tries, aiming for disarming. “I’m… retired?”

It doesn’t work.

 

* * *

 

Abby walks into her lab the morning that _it_ finally happens, and, at that singular moment, she had no idea _it_ was coming. She’s distracted by thoughts of if Ducky wants to go out for dinner and whether or not she’d just imagined Gibbs being asleep under his desk, and little bit distracted by just being glad of life.

She puts her jacket away. Slips her lab coat on. Mort presses the button that will bring her babies whirring to life. When the screen lights up, there’s a box flashing on one of them. One of her background checks. She’s not worried, at first. She has plenty of them. One for if Prince William’s phone number is leaked, one for if her favourite band gets back together, one for if…

_Report: John Doe admitted to Hennepin County Medical Center trauma one with multiple gunshot wounds to abdomen and chest. Dæmon; canis familiaris, German Shepherd form. Single gunshot wound to front leg causing damage to limb and chest. No ID. Condition crit._

One for this.

 

* * *

 

Tony stares at the bullet that’s been three years coming. _Can’t run forever, Tony,_ Gibbs’ voice murmurs to him. _You’re outta time._ There’s a screaming bark and Fitz launches herself forward. Not quick enough. He thinks of Bea as he falls.

The cement is cold except for where it’s warm and wet under him.

_Get up_ , Gibbs says. Tony closes his eyes. _Damnit, DiNozzo, what did I tell you? You don’t die till I say you can die._

“Elizabeth,” whines Fitz from somewhere impossibly far away, and then she says nothing at all.

_Sorry, Boss._


	21. Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She wakes up and Daddy isn’t there.

Lex helps her get the juice out of the fridge. She pours it herself. She only makes a little mess.

They wait together and she doesn’t cry. Daddy says she’s brave. If she’s brave now, it will make him happy when he comes back and she tells him.

She doesn’t feel brave.

 

* * *

 

Tony opens his eyes and Bea is sitting on the fold-out couch staring at him with watery eyes. Even as he watches she shrinks back, Lex an indistinct form under her chubby arms.

“Love, what’s wrong?” he asks and his voice is wrong, too far, too echo-y, too hollow. He hurts, but not a physical ache. He hurts like he’s being drawn apart from himself, peeled almost. Unravelled like a cheap wool. He looks down, expecting to see a thread of himself being pulled from his chest.

Fitz isn’t there. For the first time in his life, he can’t find her.

“It’s gonna be dark soon,” Bea says sadly, and whimpers.

“You’re not scared of the dark,” he says, looking about for his dæmon with his breath catching in his throat. Panic draws his chest in tighter, drying his mouth and making his palms slick with sweat. He doesn’t look at her because if he does, she’ll see his fear. “You’ve never been scared of the dark.”

“But you’re gone,” his daughter continues dully. “You’re gone and the switch is too high.” He turns and looks at her now, and her face is tortured. “It’s gonna be dark.”

“Get Lex to turn it on,” he says, walking towards her with his arms held out. She doesn’t move and she doesn’t get closer, and he’s unravelling more with every step. “He can be a bird. Get him to be a bird and turn the light on. I’ll be home soon, I’m coming, I promise—”

She begins to cry.

 

* * *

 

Tim follows behind Gibbs’ heels as they step into the bleach-sharp scented air of the hospital.

“The chances of it being him are slim,” Langer complains quietly, earning himself a blank-faced stare from Ziva that’s just a shade away from being a threat. “How many of these wild-goose chases have we been on now? Shepherd dæmons are common. John Does are common. We’re chasing a guy who’s probably relaxing on a beach somewhere better than here.”

“Would you like to share your feelings with Gibbs?” Ziva asks sweetly. The gentleness to her tone is belied by Farif peeling back black-rimmed lips to snarl silently at Langer’s skunk. “I could arrange for you to discuss this opinion. I am sure he will take it… pleasantly.”

Tim’s pretty sure Gibbs doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘pleasant.’

“You lot done yammering or are we gonna stand here all day?” the man himself barks, appearing out of nowhere and glowering darkly at Langer. Langer swallows and looks at his feet.

“What room, Boss?” Tim asks, changing the subject quickly. Gibbs’ eyes flicker to the nurse station and the nurse watching them.

“Not here,” he says finally, and Kali closes her eyes. “Their John Doe got moved to the DICU as soon as they stabilized him.”

Tim goes cold. Gibbs doesn’t wait for another answer, just turns and walks off. _Dæmoniatrics Intensive Care. It’s_ where they send those with dæmons so badly injured their human’s lives hang by a thread. It’s where they send those without dæmons at all.

It’s invariably the place they send those that are dying.

“Let us hope you are right, Langer,” Ziva says after a second has passed and they’ve all processed that. “I think it would be best that this is not Tony.”

But it is.

 

* * *

 

Bea is gone and Fitz still isn’t there.

It’s two years ago and his father is angry.

“You’re content to slink around from hovel to hovel like a rat to hide from this guy,” he’s saying, and Kiyake is chattering furiously from his cupped hand. “Draw him out! Draw him back to DC and end this!”

“And Bea?” the memory of Tony is saying coldly. Tony stares at himself, at the dæmon by his side that’s his but not really. His face is smooth where Tony’s is lined and he’s healthier, heavier, stronger in ways that he won’t be in the years to come. “Do you want me to hang her on a hook like bait on a line? Ari will kill her first. Just like her mom.”

“I’ll take Elizabeth.” With his father’s words, both Tonys’ breaths catch. The memory Fitz growls, ears folding back. “I’ll keep her safe while you stop this. You can’t raise a daughter on the run.”

Tony knows what comes next. Six months was far too long a time for Senior and Junior to play nice; this moment had been a long time coming. No one is surprised. “ _You_ can’t raise a daughter at all,” Tony says coldly, turning his back on his father. “Don’t pretend to know what I’m capable of.”

Tony closes his eyes to shut out the words that have followed him for the past years. A bark of cold laughter from his father, and, now that he’s not angry, Tony can also hear the fear and worry hidden in that laugh. “You’ll be the death of her,” his father says, and Tony agrees with him, now. “If anything happens to my granddaughter that you could have prevented, I’ll never forgive you.”

 

* * *

 

They point him to a room. Until the moment he walks in, deep down he still doesn’t believe it’s gonna be Tony laying in the bed.

But it is.

Gibbs stops and when he stops, everything stops with him. There’s his team bickering in muted voices behind him, there’s the hushed bustle of the DICU, there’s the whistling beep of the machines keeping the man in front of him alive.

There’s the man in front of him. And there’s his dæmon.

Now that Gibbs has found him, he doesn’t know what to do.

Tim walks into him; he hasn’t seen. Ziva is smiling behind him, probably just said something biting to Langer. Langer looks bored. None of them know yet, he’s blocking the door. Tim looks at him and his face goes white. Gibbs wonders what his own looks like. Kali shrinks around his legs. It’s only been seconds.

“Fitz,” she gasps finally, and moves forward like she’s the one wounded, sluggishly and painfully, her eyes locked on the bed containing the silent form of the shepherd. “Fitz?”

“Oh my god, Tony,” Tim says, and pushes past. “Holy… it is him. He’s alive.”

Barely.

He’s grey under the tubes and wires forcing his body to keep moving and Gibbs steps forward slowly, overtaking his shocked fox, picking up the chart at the end of the bed. He can’t look his friend in the face because his eyes are dark smudges against that grey and his expression is hopelessly blank. He’s unconscious, and Gibbs is almost glad for it.

He scans the chart. Tony’s fine. Ish. He’ll heal anyway. Surgery went well, full recovery expected, slowly.

Fitz. The damage is all in Fitz.

Ziva breaks the spell. “He is here,” she says, and Gibbs almost shouts ‘ _no shit!’_ at her. “If he is here… where is his daughter?”

Tim and Gibbs turn as one to look at her.

He shoves away all of the shock, the fear (the _pain_ ) and barks, “Call Abby, now. Trace his phone, his car, whatever he has, trace it. McGee—”

“Talking to the nurse, on it, Boss,” McGee says, gone in a second. Langer vanishes to call Abby. Ziva is still watching him.

“Ziva,” he begins, and she settles back against the wall with an ease that suggests she expects to be there a while.

“I will stay,” she says, nodding slowly, and glancing at Tony. “If we have found him… others… may have too. You go.” He doesn’t need to say anymore. She’s part of his team now, and Tony has never stopped being part of that team either. She’ll watch his back.

He calls for help, because this is too important to do on his own.

 

* * *

 

He’s on the roof and Kate is standing with her back to him. He can’t see Baoth.

“Kate,” he calls, and reaches out a hand to brush against her shoulder. He wants her to turn and face him almost as much as he doesn’t. He wants to see her face, her smile, hear her laugh, but she feels warm under his hand, alive, and it’s a mockery of what she isn’t anymore.

She turns and smiles sadly. It’s the smile he remembers, but it’s not the face.

“Elizabeth,” he breathes, because it’s his daughter grown with his eyes and her mother’s smile combined to make something all of her own.

“Hi,” she says, and turns her head just slightly against the wind and he knows what comes next but he’s helpless to stop it. “Protection detail’s over, Dad.”

“No,” he whispers and it happens anyway. The wind is against him but his face is still painted red. She falls, keeps falling, the smile still frozen on her face.

There’s gold and red and a fox screaming; he’s screaming too.

He’s alone.

 

* * *

 

The nurse looks almost frightened, and Tim would feel bad about that but he needs answers _now_.

“He was admitted with another man?” he demands. “Who? Can we speak with him?”

She shakes her head. “He died an hour after being admitted. I’m sorry. We have no records of your John Doe. No listed address, no next of kin, no nothing. There’s nothing I can give you.”

_Think, Tim, think._ He’s not the same kind of cop as Tony, he never has been. He can’t make the same deductive leaps, or reach the same conclusions in the same ways. But, he needs to try. _Think, think… how would Tony find a guy with no digital records?_

“The man who died,” he says, brain whirring. Chitta is clinging so hard to his shoulder his collar is pulling tight against his throat. “Do you have records on him?” Tony must know him. Somehow, Tony is connected to him.

She taps at her keyboard, slowly, so painfully slowly, and he twitches with the desire to grab it off of her. “Geoff Britten,” she says finally. “Says here he owns a bunch of auto mechanic stores around Minneapolis. No next of kin listed either. I have an address, if that helps?”

“Yes.” He grabs the slip of paper she writes off and almost forgets to say _thank you_ in his haste to race back to the room. Bea could be with anyone. One of Tony’s girlfriends, or a neighbour, a boyfriend even. There are a thousand possibilities and each one of them is so much more likely than Tony leaving her home _alone_. How old is she now? Three? He wouldn’t.

But working for Gibbs has taught him one thing: always trust your dæmon.

“We need to find her,” Chitta says softly, and his claws bite into his shirt. “Quickly, Timothy.”

He believes him.

 

* * *

 

When he stops screaming he’s in a house, five houses ago, and he’s reading a book to Bea using candlelight. She keeps trying to reach for the flame and he keeps pushing it further away, finally bundling her up into his arms and mock growling into her hair as she giggles. He doesn’t giggle back this time. He clings to her until she begins to kick angrily to get loose, and he doesn’t let go.

“What are you doing?” asks Fitz from miles away, but he knows if he looks around she won’t be there.

He doesn’t answer.

 

* * *

 

Ziva goes with Langer to the crime-scene, McGee taking over her watch. The police have already cleared it, having little interest in what their report refers to as ‘gang violence.’ They are wrong. Ziva might not know Anthony DiNozzo, but she knows Gibbs. She doubts he would champion a man who would fall in with gangs.

“So, they got casings from two different guns,” Langer says, pacing the dark patch on the cement where one or both of their victims had lain. “That means multiple shooters.”

“We knew that already,” Ziva says. “Tony would not have been taken down by one man.”

Langer raises an eyebrow. “You know him that well do you?” he asks.

She shakes her head, eyes on Farif as he paces, his nostrils flaring. “No,” she says shortly, “but Gibbs trained him. Gibbs trains the best.” Farif begins to jog, chuffing back at her. He has found something.

“Blood,” he says when she follows him outside into the alley. “Not Anthony’s, nor Fitz’s. I believe one of our shooters was injured as well.”

When she turns, Langer is behind her. “Told you,” she says smugly, gesturing to the spatters leading up the asphalt. “He made them bleed.”

She is also sure that he will be fine. Gibbs does not train quitters.

 

* * *

 

He’s on his knees somewhere empty. There’s nothing around. Except, when he looks up, it’s a room he knows, a familiar couch. A hand touches his shoulder as someone crouches beside him. He’s shaking. He’s breaking.

He’s long broken.

“Why didn’t you kill Ari?” he asks the carpet, staring down, refusing to let the tears on his face show. He hurts, everywhere, but mostly in his soul and his heart. _Fitz_ , he thinks, and knows she’s dying, and he’s helpless. “Why did you give up on us?” The hand slips down his front and wraps around him, tugging him into an awkward one-armed hug. Tony lets himself fall back into that embrace, a heart beating against his spine and the ghost of the man’s breath on his neck.

“Never gave up on you,” Gibbs says finally, brushing his lips against Tony’s ear and making a noise like his heart is breaking too. “We never stopped looking. We’re still looking. And we’re never going to stop.”

“I needed you,” Tony is still saying, and he sounds plaintive. He hates himself for sounding like that.

“You’ve got me. I’m right here, if you’d just open your eyes.”

He doesn’t.

 

* * *

 

McGee gives him an address. Gibbs goes alone. As soon as he gets out his car and finds himself standing on the outskirts of a barely reputable mechanics garage, he’s wondering what the hell he’s doing here. He looks around at the stripped husks of cars and the piles of rubbish pushed up against wire fencing by the wind, and he wonders what the hell Tony was doing out in the middle of the night with a man from this part of town.

But, mostly, he wonders just how far Tony would go to stay hidden.

The door of the office jingles when he walks in. There’s a woman sitting behind the desk, her face tear-stained and thickly painted nails close to her mouth. She lowers her hand, swallowing and smiling weakly, the ends of her nails chipped by her teeth. “Britten Motors,” she says with false cheer, and there’s pink polish on her tooth. He stares at it as he steps up to the counter and drops a hand to his pocket, his badge. “How can I help you, sir?”

There’s a drawing on the wall behind her. It’s barely a drawing, just swirls of colours and lines, and pinned up proudly by a small hand. There’s a name written across the bottom in neat cursive. He can’t read it from here.

“NCIS,” he says finally, pulling his badge, and she pales. Kali is around his feet, pacing. “Special Agent Gibbs. Your boss was killed last night, are you aware?”

She blinks, then nods slowly. “Mugged, I heard,” she says, and she sounds calm enough that he believes she believes that. “This neighbourhood can be rough sometimes. Don’t know what he was doing walking around at that time…”

Gibbs leans on the desk, watching her eyes flicker from his badge to his face nervously. “There was a man with him,” Gibbs says. He keeps his voice cool. “Male, mid-thirties. Brown hair. German Shepherd dæmon. You know him?”

He sees the exactly moment recognition hits her, overtaken seconds later by horror. “Tony!” she gasps, and his heart twists. “Oh my god, Tony; is he okay? He’s not dead is he? Was he hurt?” She stands, flustered, reaching for the phone before pulling back and lifting her hand to her mouth again almost unconsciously. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“He’s alive.”

She closes her eyes with relief and visibly sags. “Oh thank god. Poor little Ellie, she must be so scared… do you know where she is? She must have been… oh god, was she with him?” The horror is back.

“Her location is unknown. Do you know where he would have left her? An address? A friend?” Gibbs tries to hide the sharpness to his tone, but every one of his nerves has started jangling at once, setting his teeth to buzzing.

The woman bites at her lip, and taps away at her keyboard. “No,” she says slowly. “He’s… he’s not going to be in trouble is he? You’re just here looking for Geoff’s killer? Oh, you don’t… you don’t think it was Tony do you? He wouldn’t! He’s the straightest one here. I mean, not that… You’ve flustered me, Agent Gibbs. I’m not… not the rambling type, usually.”

Gibbs takes pity on her. “He works under the table. You don’t know anything about his life outside of work. He doesn’t have friends or relationships that you know of, and doesn’t share any personal information. No listed details. Correct?”

Another nod. “He’s just a very private man,” she insists loyally. “He has nothing to hide. But… well, if anyone knows anything, Rabbit might. I can… he should be here.”

Gibbs stares silently and she reaches for the phone.

 

* * *

 

There’s still an arm around him, but it’s different now. He’s not scared to look at her this time because they’re not on a roof and she’s looking at him like she loves him.

“I miss you,” he tells Kate, and her mouth twists into a wry smile. She hugs him close and he holds her closer. He’s not letting go this time.

“Idiot,” she mutters into his chest. He feels her jabbing him with her finger, right in the spot where the first bullet slammed through his gut. “You’re supposed to be the one shooting the baddies. Didn’t Gibbs teach you anything?”

“Taught me how to fetch coffee,” Tony says, and she slaps him across the back of the head. Ow.

He’s missed that.

“You’ve done… Tony, you’ve been fantastic,” Kate says, and now he knows he’s hallucinating because not even a dead Kate is this nice. “Bea’s grown up so smart and so pretty and you did that, on your own. And to think you thought you couldn’t.” She laughs and her arms tighten. He’s not the only one who doesn’t want to let go. “But it’s time to go home, okay? Go home.”

“I don’t know how,” he says helplessly, but he’s alone again, and drifting.

 

* * *

 

Tim balances his laptop on his knees and makes the call, Tony still silent and immobile in the room behind him. He watches the video link blur and sharpen as the connection settles. Abby peers back out at him and she’s in her lab with Ducky and Palmer hovering behind, all their faces asking the same question. Waiting for the answer he doesn’t want to give them.

“It’s him,” he says to that unspoken question, and then, as a reply to the shocked breath that rattles through his speakers, “It’s bad.”

“How can we help?” says Ducky, always steady Ducky, and Tim is so thankful for him.

“Abby,” he says sternly, and sees her face switch from horrified and on the brink of tears to coolly professional, with only a glimmer of the misery still within her eyes. She’s gotten used to hiding her emotions over the past few years, “we can’t find Bea.” Another shocked breath and the silence over the line is painful in its oddity. Abby is so rarely silent, when she is… Tim closes his eyes and waits for noise to bring them back to normality.

“Okay,” Abby says finally, and when he opens his eyes, she’s tying her hair back and looking determined. “Right, let’s do this Timmy. What do we know?”

Tim tells her.

 

* * *

 

He decides that if this is just a hallucination, he’s going to have some damn control over it. So, he sits on the ground made of nothing and thinks of who he loves. _Bea, Fitz, Kate, Gibbs, Abby, Ducky, Tim, James, Dad…_

The ground is soft and a small hand touches his. He looks at her.

“Guess if I’m dying, there’s worse last faces to see,” he says, and she giggles. “Don’t plan on dying though. I’m coming home, kiddo.”

“Okay,” she says loyally, and pats his knee. “Story?”

He tells her favourite. “Once there was a fox, black as the night, and this fox lost his family. So he found another, made of all kinds of animals...”

“Doggie,” she says, and points behind him. “And a monkey.”

“And a chameleon,” says Fitz, and she’s closer. Tony feels the couch sink under her weight and her nose taps against his elbow. He doesn’t look at her, not yet. “And a kestrel.”

“That’s a bird.”

“That’s right. That’s the bravest kind of bird.”

 

* * *

 

Rabbit turns out to be a weedy, squirrelly guy with a bear dæmon that stands almost shoulder high to them both. It still cowers back from Kali’s cold gaze.

Rabbit turns out to know very little of use.

“He’s a good guy, just private, ya’ know? Him and his kid, they just like to be left alone and…” Rabbit trails off and touches his dæmon’s shoulder, almost comfortingly. “He’s my friend and it should have been me there that night. They wouldn’t have fucked with Koe. She’d ‘ave kicked all their asses and...” He swipes a hand across his nose and there’s a weird moment when Gibbs realizes that maybe Tony hadn’t stopped living when he’d walked out of their lives. Despite his best efforts, he’d still drawn people to him, he still has people who care…

He makes his choice. “His daughter’s missing,” he says, and the bear grunts and sits up suddenly, soft eyes locked on his. “We don’t have much time to find her.”

When he walks out of that garage with a mobile number on the notepad in his hand, Fornell is leaning on his car.

 

* * *

 

It gets dark.

“When’s Daddy coming?” she asks Lex. He’s eating the rest of the bread. They’re hungry.

“Soon,” he promises.

 

* * *

 

Ziva finds McGee sitting in the hallway outside Tony’s room with his laptop closed on his knees and his face thoughtful.

“One of Tony’s attackers was injured,” she tells him, Langer hovering behind with his eyes trailing on the door to Tony’s room. “By bullet or fang, I do not know. But likely bad enough that there is every possibility they are in this locale at this moment.” McGee’s gaze darkens and she hides a smile. It has been a very long time since she would call him ‘timid’. She would not like to be on the receiving end of that anger, nor Gibbs’.

“By fang?” Langer asks incredulously. “What dæmon would hurt a human?”

Ziva dislikes this man. He is a fine agent. He is a torturously dull human being. “Farif would,” she says without even looking at him. “Kali would. Fitz would. If given the choice between life and death, are you saying you would not utilize every tool available to you in order to survive?”

McGee makes a noise and surges to his feet, reclosing the laptop Ziva hadn’t seen him open. “There’s a man in ER being stitched up for injuries caused by a ‘dog attack’,” he says, glancing at Langer. “Stay here, Langer. We’ll go question him.”

“ _Question_ him, David!” Langer calls after them. “He’s gotta be in one piece when you’re done!”

Ziva snorts. “If he is the man who shot Tony, I doubt he is in one piece anyway,” she tells McGee, who does not smile.

 

* * *

 

“And the dog liked the fox very much, but he had to go away with his pup and hide.”

“From the snake?”

“See, you don’t need me to tell you this story. You know it already. What use am I?”

“You’re silly.”

 

* * *

 

Gibbs finds his team standing outside the ER. Tim looks stressed. Ziva looks pissed. Neither look surprised to see Fornell.

“We talked to a man who ran afoul of Fitz’ jaws,” Ziva says. “He says he did not shoot her though, and I actually believe him.”

“The hell would you believe him for?” Fornell asks, staring at her.

McGee swallows and looks at Gibbs when he answers. “Albert Simmons,” he says, and Gibbs memory flickers. _Why is that familiar?_ “Tony arrested him just after Bea was born. He… he says it was a drug deal, he outed Tony as a fed. That’s what got him shot, they thought it was a bust.”

Gibbs remembers. Simmons. He’s supposed to still be in jail, why is he out? Out and… _responsible for this mess._

Kali bristles and bares short fangs at the ER door.

“Abby ran his phone records,” Ziva continues, nudging Farif with her leg out of the way of a nurse. “Gibbs, he was the one who called the ambulance. If not for him, no one would have found Tony.”

“He would have died,” Tim finishes. “He said he remembered that Tony has a kid and he called it in anonymously before he came here. He saved Tony’s life.”

Gibbs turns his back on them and heads back to the room. Langer is there, alone. He hasn’t been with them long enough for Gibbs to trust him alone. “Hasn’t saved anyone yet,” he calls back. “Tony’s not outta the woods yet. And neither is Bea.”

 

* * *

 

“And the fox searched and searched, but he couldn’t find the dog anywhere…”

“That’s not the end. It has to have an end. All stories have ends.”

“Not this one, little bug. Not yet.”

 

* * *

 

Gibbs got him a number. Tony’s phone, or one of. It’s not enough. He can track it, track it plenty, but Tony hasn’t been using it long enough. He’s been swapping phones every few months, leaving them switched off for days at a time…

He’s stonewalling them at every turn.

His laptop beeps. He’s alone with Tony again. Gibbs and Fornell have gone… somewhere. Ziva and Langer are trying to track down Tony’s car. It’s night time, approaching midnight.

Abby’s calling. He answers. She’s got her ‘guilty’ face on.

“Can I see him?” she asks, leaning close the camera. “Tony, I mean. I know you’re with him. I can hear him beeping.”

“He’s…” Tim trails off and looks up at the bed. Chitta is on the end of the bed, hanging on the rail, watching Tony’s heart monitor carefully. As Tim watches, he reaches across and climbs onto Fitz’ bed, settling in in the fur of her belly and watching them both at once. “He’s different, Abby. He’s hurt bad, and he’s been… struggling.”

“I don’t care,” she says, her mouth settling into the stubborn line they all know and love. “Turn me, McGee. I need to tell him something. He’ll hear me. Tony’s always known when to listen.” He turns her and tries not to listen by closing his eyes and focusing on the rushing of blood in his head.

He forgets to stop listening after a while.

“… and now you gotta get better and come home because you have a beautiful little girl and we’ve waited too damn long for you, got it, Tony? Too damn long. And Ziva works for us now and I know you didn’t like her but I think you will, I really think you will, but you have to wake up first. So I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but deal’s off. I’m giving them what I have. I don’t think you’ll mind, not this time. McGee, spin me again.”

He does so. “What do you have? When did you get stuff? What do you have?”

She turns the webcam to her computer. There’s a map with dark circles spanning it. “You gave me that number Gibbs gave you, and I used the numbers I already had and, well, this is every tower that Tony has pinged in Minneapolis. All of them, but more importantly, there’s also the ones he _hasn’t_. Notably, Near North. Low income, high crime, lots of places to get lost in.”

There are wide empty spaces on the map. There are also pale places, less often visited. Or maybe often visited, and just rarely turned on in... everyone makes mistakes. “Wait, the numbers you had?” Tim asks, and Abby looks down.

“No man is an island,” she says sadly. “Gibbs wanted to keep Bea out the news, in case Ari saw it, but we’re running out of time. He says if it hits twenty-four hours since Tony got brought in, it’s going public, Ari or no Ari. I wasn’t going to send this until I knew we… well, here.”

A file pops up. Tim clicks accept.

Photos. Photos and photos and photos. Bea, a baby. Bea, a toddler. Bea, a smiling pre-schooler holding a stuffed fox with a jaunty bow around its neck.

“You’ve been in contact with him all this time,” Tim says.

Abby nods and still doesn’t meet his gaze. “Gibbs doesn’t know I still… but if we’re getting an alert out, he’ll need pictures. Someone has seen her. Bring her home, Tim. Both of them.” She hits the exit button before he can thank her and the feed is cut.

Tim wonders what he’s going to tell Gibbs.

 

* * *

 

Thirty-one hours.

Gibbs does not say anything when McGee tells him about Abby. He stares at the photos for a long time, his face impossible to understand. Ziva takes one and examines it. Cute kid. No pictures of Tony. She is not surprised.

At one p.m., they begin running the alerts.

_“Missing child: three-year-old Elizabeth Todd is believed to be alone in her home, possibly located within the Near North District of Minneapolis, after her father has been left in a critical condition following a shooting near Plymouth Ave North. Police are asking the assistance of the public in locating her. If you’ve seen this child or this man, please call the hotline number below. Do not approach her. If you know anything, please call the hotline number below. We repeat; three-year-old Elizabeth Todd is believed…”_

“That’s it,” Langer says, carding his fingers through his hair. “Everything your friend has worked for; every sacrifice he’s made to stay underground. Gone in an instant.”

In all the months Langer has worked with them, he still has not worked out that Gibbs has ears as keen as his fox’s. “Doesn’t matter, Langer,” Gibbs snaps, staring at the TV screen. Outside the hospital room, police speak with the on-duty doctor. Nearby, Fornell’s men stand guard. They expect Ari. Ziva is not so sure that they are wrong to expect him. “Important thing is we find her. We find her first, we keep her safe. Got it?”

“Roger that, Boss.”

 

* * *

 

Lex jumps up. He’s a puppy now but bigger. More like Perte. He growls, “Someone’s coming.”

“Hide!” she whispers, because Daddy tells them to be careful. There are rules.

No opening the blinds.

No talking to people they don’t know.

No opening the door.

And always, _always_ hide if someone comes.

They climb under the couch, through the bars, and peek out. It’s dusty. She almost sneezes but covers her mouth. _Gotta be quiet when the snake comes._

They’re crying. _Dad_ , Lex mouths at her. She wants him too.

The front door opens.


	22. Loss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim gets them close. He gets them a neighbourhood. He even manages to get them a building. Breaks it down to three-hundred apartments. An anonymous tip gets them all the way.

“Hello? This is the hotline for that kid, yeah? There’s an apartment near me. I think I seen that guy around? Definitely remember that dog. And there’s someone crying, like, nonstop…”

A hand touches his elbow as Gibbs waits for the owner to finish sorting through a ring of keys so old-fashioned he’s tempted to check the date to make sure he hasn’t stepped back in time. The carpet in the hall is ratty, worn by decades of feet, the lighting grim and sporadic. Fornell jumps every time the bulb flashes. Curious onlookers peer out of apartments and gather at the ends of the hall, ignoring the police who try to usher them away. Gibbs knows there’s more outside, they had to move a few to get in.

Damn media.

“Better go in gentle, Gibbs,” Fornell says quietly. “She’s going to be terrified.”

Gibbs nods. The door opens. The two men enter cautiously.

“Elizabeth?” Fornell calls softly, his bat quivering on his shoulder with her ears turning. “Your daddy sent us.”

Silence.

Kali hums and tilts her head, nose wrinkling. The apartment stinks of piss and damp, a trail of ants marching merrily into the kitchen, congregating around sticky paw and footprints across the tattered linoleum. “Leroy,” she whispers, and points her muzzle towards the battered fold-out couch. Gibbs exchanges a glance with Fornell.

It’s quiet. It’s so damn quiet he can’t think. Why is it so quiet?

“You go,” Gibbs says, his throat tight and head rushing. “You’ve got a daughter, you can…”

“She knows you,” Fornell says, and steps back, pushing the door closed with his foot to forestall any frantic attempts to escape. “On some level, she’ll remember you, Gibbs.”

He doesn’t argue. There’s no time to argue. He steps forward, drops to his knees carefully, and peers under the worn blanket hanging grimly over the side of the couch. Kali presses against his side, almost shuddering with the tension.

He doesn’t know what he’s going to see.

“Go away,” comes the muffled voice from under the couch, and Kali twitches with shock. “Go _away_.”

Fornell makes a strangled kind of noise behind him, and Gibbs hears his radio hiss. “Got her,” his friend says into the piece. “Have medics standing by. We’re bringing her out in ten.”

“Hey there, Bea,” Gibbs soothes, pulling the blanket out of the way and shining his flashlight into the dusty space. The light catches on the rusty bars of the bed, an abandoned book, a muesli bar wrapper and, finally, the barest hint of wide eyes staring at him from a bundle of fur and child pressed right against the back, way out of arm’s reach. “I’m a friend of your daddy’s. We’re going to take you to him, okay? Him and Fitz.”

A soft rustle and she inches slightly closer. There’s a low growl from her arms and a flash of puppy teeth. “No,” she says finally, settling back. “Dad said no.”

Shit.

He’s going to have to get under there. He drops to his belly and worms his way under the couch, dodging bars and hissing as his side catches on a broken spring. Damn DiNozzo could have at least not rented the dodgiest piece of crap…

Bea makes a terrified kind of wail and he stops. “We’re not allowed,” she whimpers, pressing back further, and now he’s closer he can see Kate’s eyes staring at him from the round face.

She’s so much bigger now.

Lex struggles out of her arms and lunges forward, snarling. Gibbs pulls back to avoid touching the furious dæmon. “Hey there, Lex,” he says, ignoring the snarls. “I know your dad told you not to go with strangers, but we’re not. We’re the police. You can trust police.”

Lex flickers, shifting from a shepherd pup to a wolf, finally shrinking down and rearing up as a spitting rattlesnake that feints at Gibbs. Bea whimpers and turns her face away. Gibbs doesn’t flinch. He’d face worse than a snake’s fangs if it meant keeping her safe. He tugs his badge out with difficulty. “See. This is my badge. It means I’m a real police officer. I help people. And I’m here to help you and your dad, okay?”

Something brushes his side. Kali.

She ignores Lex’s warning rattle from his shaking tail and walks forward, easily twining under the bars. “Hello, Lex,” she says with a softness that Gibbs hasn’t heard from her in… years. “I remember when you were tiny. Do you remember me?”

“No.” Lex sinks back, shifts into a puppy again, and settles onto his belly, tail tucked between shaking legs. “Yes. You’re a fox.”

“Daddy’s fox?” Bea asks curiously, uncurling from her corner. “I have a fox.” She holds something up, fluffy and limp, and Gibbs almost audibly gasps when he recognises Kelly’s stuffed toy. “Are you here looking for Daddy?”

Kali barely hesitates. “Yes. I’ve been looking for a long time. Will you let us take you to him? We miss him very much.”

Bea looks from Gibbs to his dæmon, then nods slowly. Lex flickers and settles again. Kali leans forward, bringing her nose down to bump affectionately against the fox kit’s chest before taking his ruff with gentle teeth and pulling him back towards herself, inching back out from under the couch. Bea moves, faster than Gibbs is ready for, crawling after the fox and her dæmon without looking twice at Gibbs himself.

Gibbs slips out, sitting up on his knees and examining the odd bunch, barely restraining a shiver when Bea wraps her arms possessively around Kali’s neck and regards the two men warily. There’s dirt on her hands and her face, her hair a lopsided mess of curly knots, and he can see a stain on her light pants that explains the smell. She’s taller than he expected, thinner, and there’s a wild kind of suspicion in her eyes that breaks his heart.

“Come on, Bea,” Gibbs says gently, reached towards her. She dodges his hand. “Let’s go to your Dad.”

“I’m not Bea,” she replies shortly, mouth tightening into a hard line of anger. “That’s not my name.”

“Oh? What’s your name then?” Fornell keeps his voice cheerful, light. When Bea looks at him, Gibbs takes the opportunity to inch closer, sidling just out of her line of sight. She’s not going to like this. He doesn’t like this. But he’s not keen to test her newfound clinginess to his dæmon in a crowded hallway, or the parking lot downstairs, not when there could be anyone waiting in the crowd…

“Elizabeth Kelly,” she announces proudly, and Gibbs almost falters in his shock. Almost.

She screams when he grabs her and she doesn’t stop.

 

* * *

 

Tim waits outside the apartment block alone as Gibbs and Fornell enter together. Chitta paces across his shoulders, eyes rolling, every movement painfully deliberate.

“Calm down,” Tim says eventually, eyeing the milling onlookers. There aren’t many, mostly just residents, but there’s a van pulling up that all the cops look disgusted to see. He really doesn’t want this to become a media circus. The last thing they need is Tony’s face splashed across national news, even in a feel-good two-minute segment ‘child saved’ at the end after the weather.

There’s a flurry of movement. Tim hears an angry shriek, the kind that a child makes when both infuriated and terrified beyond belief, and his heart skips a beat. He’s standing back from the door, maybe two metres away, and there’s an ambulance by his side waiting in case they’re needed. He makes his choice, seeing a man holding a camera slipping out the back of the van, his dæmon something bright and feathered.

“Let’s go be nuisances,” he says to Chitta cheerfully, and walks towards the news van. “Sorry sir, but I’m afraid you can’t film here.”

When the man tries to splutter out some sort of speech that no doubt will contain the words ‘free speech’, Chitta sighs loudly, and flicks his tongue out with precision accuracy straight onto the lens of the camera, completely obscuring their view of the entranceway with a glob of sticky saliva. “Oopth,” he says, his words muffled by his extended tongue, “I thot I thaw a bug.”

“Sorry,” Tim says sweetly, as the cameraman yells. “Long time since lunch.”

They don’t get to see Gibbs carrying Bea to safety, but it’s worth it.

 

* * *

 

Ziva is sitting with Tony when they bring his daughter in. The child is filthy, red-faced, and has clearly been screaming until she is hoarse. Ziva wonders why they did not clean her up before bringing her here, but one look at the pinched expression on Gibbs’ face and she knows. If she was the child, she doubts she would have allowed such unimportant things as a ‘bath’ stop her from reaching her _abba_.

“Daddy,” whimpers the girl, and kicks frantically in Gibbs’ arms. He hangs on grimly, despite the firm heel that repeatedly and unerringly continues to find its way to his groin. Ziva is sorely impressed. “Daddy!”

“She can’t be in here if she’s going to scream,” a nurse scolds, straightening from where she is checking Tony’s IV.

Gibbs and Ziva both simply look at her. She pales and leaves. They will not be removing Elizabeth from the room while either of them are there to stop it.

“Gentle,” Gibbs grunts, bringing her closer to the bed. “You’ll hurt him otherwise.”

The girl goes stock-still in seconds, hanging limp in Gibbs’ grasp, her wide brown eyes locked on her _abba’s_ face. Ziva can see tears cutting pale tracks down the dirt on her cheeks. When Gibbs steps up to the bed, she does not jump or shriek or kick. She simply reaches out a dirty, trembling hand to wrap around two of Tony’s still fingers, and hangs on tightly.

 

* * *

 

Seeing her dad laying in the hospital bed seems to leech all the fight from Bea. She doesn’t make a noise when the nurse comes to take her away for tests, despite every iota of Gibbs’ body telling him to not let her out of his sight, go after her, _go after her damnit._ He doesn’t. He waits patiently by Tony’s bed until the hour when they bring back the quiet—and notably cleaner—child, releasing her hand and ushering her into the room past the watchful FBI agents. She’s dressed in hospital clothes, loose pyjamas with baggy arms and pants, and they almost wrap twice around her. She doesn’t bolt straight for the bed containing her dad as Gibbs sits upright in the chair, ready to grab her before she can knock one of the tubes or wires her dad is covered with. Instead, she inches slowly over to his chair and scrambles into his lap, curling into herself and ignoring all attempts from the nurses to get her to talk to them.

He holds her close and wonders what comes next for them all.

 

* * *

 

“I’m sorry, Agent Gibbs. But there is absolutely no way Mr. DiNozzo can travel. The link between him and his dæmon is too tenuous. Until it stabilizes enough to bring him out of the coma, he has to stay where he is. Any movement may shatter the link.”

“How long?”

“We just don’t know.”

 

* * *

 

They have to leave Daddy.

“Why can’t we stay?” Ellie asks Leroy, but he doesn’t say anything. He never says anything.

Kali does. “You can’t live in a hospital,” she says, and then they tell her to say goodbye.

Daddy gets to live here, Ellie wants to complain, but she doesn’t. “Bye, Daddy,” she says and when Tim holds her up, she kisses him twice. Just like he does. “Love you.”

He doesn’t say anything back and that’s wrong. He never ignores her like this. He must know she’d cried a lot when he didn’t come home. He must know she wasn’t brave.

She refuses to cry anymore. He’ll wake up if she’s brave.

He has to.

 

* * *

 

Fornell appears outside Tony’s door as Bea says her, oddly tear-free, goodbyes. Her _temporary_ goodbyes. As soon as their feet hit the ground in DC, Gibbs is going to be knocking down the door of everyone he knows with even the vaguest medical knowledge until one of them tells him how they can bring Tony home.

Starting with the one he trusts the most.

“Well, I got his case assigned to me,” Fornell says, leaning against the wall with his back to the window viewing in. Gibbs stares at Bea sitting on the edge of Tony’s bed, Tim hovering protectively by her elbow, her head hanging low and Lex a mouse in her cupped hands. “I’ll be staying here with two men, until such time as the Bureau believes he’s out of danger.”

“How’d you swing that?” Gibbs asks, not really paying attention. Kali is in the hospital room, her gaze locked on Bea, with the hyper-focus she’s shown since the stepping into the derelict apartment Tony had called home.

Fornell is silent for a second, and that’s how Gibbs knows things have just gone from bad to worse. “Gibbs,” he begins, and then changes tack when Gibbs turns to stare at him. “He was sighted.”

Ari.

“Where?”

“Eight miles from here.”

Gibbs does the one thing he can do. He prioritizes, just like he should have all those years ago. He protects Bea. He leaves Tony.

And he prays to a God he’s stopped believing in that it’s not the wrong choice.

 

* * *

 

Bea doesn’t trust him, and he doesn’t really blame her. He’s a stranger and, worse, he’s a stranger who’d swept into her life and then took her away from the one person she loves the most. It doesn’t make it sting any less when she spends the first three days of being back in DC adamantly refusing to speak to him. She talks to Kali, if she needs anything. She asks her if she can have a drink that Gibbs dutifully supplies; she asks her to read her a bedtime story, which the fox does as the child turns the pages for her. She asks her when her dad is coming home, which neither of them can answer.

She refuses to speak to Tim or Ziva as they take turns keeping guard in Gibbs’ living room. She won’t talk to Chitta either, despite the chameleon trying. Ziva hesitates and he can see her considering it, but, in the end, Farif can’t bring himself to break that barrier and stays silent.

It takes a little of the sting out of her rejection of Gibbs.

He still hasn’t quite come to terms with opening the door to the room that had been Kelly’s and finding her face peering at him from over the covers, and he doesn’t think he ever will. He doesn’t let her see how unsettled he is though.

She loves Ducky and Netta, but that’s no surprise to anyone. Ducky avoids all his questions about when Tony can come home. He doesn’t stop asking though.

He puts a glass of milk in front of her one morning, and she pulls a face. Then she looks at him, at him, not at his fox. “I don’t like milk,” she says pertly, and he hides his cautious delight behind a scowl that she returns.

“What do you like then?” he asks, and waits for her eyes to slide away from him and down to his fox.

“Juice,” she says, and pushes the glass away.

Gibbs makes a call.

 

* * *

 

Abby taps on the door once and then lets herself in, arms bustling with bags. Gibbs pokes his head out of the kitchen door, his mouth twitching in what’s almost a smile when he sees her.

“Juice!” Mort explains, bouncing in with his arms wrapped around a foamy bottle of apple. “You didn’t specify a flavour—”

“—so we got every flavour!” Abby lowers the bags and holds them open for him. “Can we see her?”

Gibbs stares at the juice and then he stares at Abby and Abby wonders quickly that no wonder the poor thing is quiet—she can’t imagine that living in Gibbs house, no matter how temporarily, would do wonders for your social skills.  Never mind. That’s what Auntie Abby is here for, at least until Tony’s back on his feet.

“Kitchen,” Gibbs grunts, and steps aside. Abby bustles through. “Abs…” She ignores him. She knows what he’s going to say. Probably a slightly more concise version of Tim’s, ‘she’s three and scared and probably won’t like you being all _you_ ’ speech.

“Hello, Bea!” she says brightly to the girl whose head barely manages to peek over the tabletop. Her chin is practically in her bowl of dry cereal, another victim of her—understandable—refusal to drink milk. Abby makes a mental note to find Gibbs a cushion of some kind. Or a couple of phone books. Or a taller house-guest. “I hear you like juice.” She brandishes a purple bottle.

Bea’s eyes slip to the bottle and widen with barely suppressed excitement. “It’s purple,” she says, her voice torn between confusion and excitement. “Juice isn’t purple. It’s orange.”

“This is special juice. Only special juice is purple.”

A scrabbling of claws and a squirrel heaves itself up onto the chair over Bea’s head and examines her just as intently as his human. “Does it go on cereal?” Lex asks, and Abby feels Gibbs twitch behind her.

“No,” Gibbs says, right as Abby uncaps it and says, “You bet it does. And even better—purple-juicy-cereal is even better when you eat it on the floor with friends!” As it turns out, as Abby sits cross-legged on the kitchen tiles with the giggling kid she’d almost given up hope of seeing again, purple cereal tastes just fine.

 

* * *

 

Ziva gets there to take over from him. Tim doesn’t mean to hear their conversation, but he does.

“He is definitely in the states again,” Ziva is saying, and Gibbs is saying nothing. “Mossad have no control over him, Gibbs. They do not know what he is here to do.” Bea is asleep upstairs, and Tim fights the urge to check on her just in case. “How do we protect them?” Tim’s never heard Ziva sound this… vulnerable. Scared of failing. “We cannot even find him.”

“He’s your brother. How would you stop him?” Gibbs sounds bitter. Tim closes his eyes and wishes Tony would wake the fuck up. They need him. “We know what he’s here for, David. He’s here to hurt me, in any way he can. And he won’t stop until I’m dead… or until I want to be.”

Tim walks in there because their team needs to stick together right now, and if that means he has to stop them from pecking at each other, he will. He doesn’t expect the sight that greets him. Kali is sitting in her usual neat posture, but Farif is at her side. As Tim watches, the cheetah lowers his head to press his muzzle to her forehead in an affectionate gesture of hope. Gibbs looks at Tim, standing near Ziva with his shoulders stiff with determination. Ziva watches nothing, mouth turned downwards.

“Would Tony dying hurt so bad that you would wish for death?” she asks, and Tim’s breath catches. Gibbs’ face doesn’t change.

“Yes,” he says simply, “and Ari knows it.”

 

* * *

 

Tony is in the news. _‘Missing NCIS agent found in critical condition.’ ‘Search for agent’s three-year-old daughter over—child safe!’ ‘Federal agent still in critical condition—his attackers unknown!’_ He’d known from the start that this would bring the wrong kind of attention. But, first, it brings the right. He doesn’t recognise the man on his porch at first when he opens his door. It takes him until the creak of wood announces the presence of the massive gyrfalcon on his porch railing to realize.

“Dropped Tony here once,” James Todd says curtly. “Figured she’d be here. I’m gonna warn you, my parents aren’t far behind me. She’s our family too.” Gibbs lets him in and tries to tell himself he’s not pleased when Bea treats him with the same suspicious indifference she treats everyone she doesn’t know. She does the same to her grandparents. Kate’s mother spends the whole visit alternating between exclaiming over her size and leaving the room to hide tears. Bea spends the whole visit alternating between trying to disassociate from the strangers around her and looking tearfully overwhelmed. Gibbs finds himself cornered by Mr. Todd, and prepares himself for a fight.

“Thank you,” the man says simply, and Gibbs is floored, “for looking after her. And for looking after Tony. Kate was right to name you her godfather. I would be doing my daughter a disservice if I was to fight her choice.”

Gibbs nods and says around the lump in his throat, “Doing my best. We’ll keep her safe.”

His mouth flickers. “I know you will.”

 

* * *

 

The fight comes from an unexpected source. DiNozzo Snr. doesn’t knock. He doesn’t call first. He walks into Gibbs home, wearing a mask that Gibbs recognises from his son, with a lawyer at his side.

“I’m taking my granddaughter,” he says coldly with Bea on his lap, laughing and patting at her grandfather’s tie. Gibbs doesn’t let his gaze waver. “You have no claim to her.”

“The hell I don’t,” he replies, just as coldly, and when Snr. leaves, Bea stays.

“Bye, Poppy!” she calls, waving from the front door and beaming. She’s not going anywhere. Not while Gibbs is there to stop it.

 

* * *

 

Two weeks after and Gibbs gets a call from the hospital. He leaves Bea with Abby and gets on the first flight.

The room is cheerfully lit and painfully quiet when he walks in. Machines hum. Outside the room, a cart rattles. Fornell is by the door, and he looks pale and worried when Gibbs strides past, but Gibbs doesn’t pause. Tony shifts his head slightly to look at him as he walks in, his face a grim shadow of its former vitality. “Bea?” he asks first, voice hoarse and cracked.

“Mouthy,” Gibbs answers, walking to the bed. Kali jumps up into the chair, peering worriedly at the two forms in the beds. “Learned from the best how to sass me, DiNozzo.”

A dry laugh devoid of humour follows. “Sorry, Boss. Doin’ good by her. Keep her safe…”

Gibbs swallows back a bite of raw fear. _It’s just the painkillers,_ he thinks. _Just the painkillers. He’s fine. He’s not… he’s just fine._

“Should ‘a come to me for help, Tony,” he says, because he can’t think of anything else to say. He can tell him stories about his daughter, remind him what he has to live for, but every one of them has fled his mind. “I would have helped you. I’ll always help you.” He almost reaches for Tony’s hand, instead changing his mind halfway and settling it on the bed near Tony’s blanket-covered hip.

“I know.” Tony’s eyes are closed, already being dragged back into the dreamless sleep he’s trapped in. Fitz is still out cold, her fur ragged from disrepair and sides concave. Gibbs can see the hint of gum in her open mouth, the tube vanishing down her throat. They’re almost as white as her teeth. Keeping her alive is one thing, they’re managing that. Keeping her healthy? They just have to hope. Fingers touch his hand, weakly wrapping around his palm. Tony’s skin feels dry and paper-thin, and horribly fragile when Gibbs grips it tightly. “Sorry,” Tony says again, eyes still closed. “Still love you. Always did.” It’s the worst way to hear those words, and moments later Tony is gone again. Gibbs doesn’t say it back, because he’ll be damned if he has to say it twice.

 

* * *

 

“He’s your brother,” Gibbs had said, and that is true. Even after all this time, it is true. Gibbs brings them the news. And they plan. Oh, how they plan. “This is going to end with him dead,” Gibbs says to her when they are alone. “I need to know you have my back.” She has had his back for over two years now. She does not intend upon failing him now. Not for a man she does not know anymore, and would not respect if she did.

The bridge is silent, the water below beautiful in the starlight. The moon is reflected in the slight waves. It is a stunning night. She delights in it for all those who cannot. There is a scuff of a shoe behind her, and she knows it is deliberate. Ari is only audible when he chooses to be. Farif huffs, leaning against her leg. She turns and he is there. She could end this right now, except… she knows he would not have come here without a backup plan. She leaves her gun in its holster and holds her hands out. _I am unarmed_ the gesture says. It does not say _I am defenceless_. That would be a lie.

“ _Shalom_ ,” he says, and smiles icily. She does not return the greeting. A flicker of light in the corner of her eye, over his shoulder. It rests on Farif, a red eye right in the centre of the creamy swirl of his chest. She does not regret coming here alone. If Gibbs had of seen that chilling sight, she could not have stopped him. Gibbs believes her to be meeting Ari two days from now.

She could die here. She might die here.

“Why have you returned?” she asks instead, her hand finding the railing of the bridge as though unconcerned with the sniper aiming a bullet at her soul. “You escaped quite nicely after Agent Todd’s murder. Why return to where you are hunted?”

Ari shrugs. “Unfinished business. I thought you know I am blameless in Caitlin’s death?” He regards her with cold suspicion. “Unless working under Gibbs’ heel for so long has altered your understanding of events.”

She barely has to force the tears that come. She sees him wince, softening slightly. He has always hated to see them cry. “You are my brother, Ari,” she murmurs, closing her eyes and feeling the hot tears on her cheeks. “You will die here if you do what you have come here to do.”

He laughs but the noise is shaken. “I don’t think so. He’d have to catch me first.”

“He will. He is mad with grief.” Ziva keeps her eyes closed, and focuses on the memory of Gibbs when he had returned, pale and shaken and… broken. “You will die for no reason. Leave. There is nothing for you here.”

“You are mistaken…”

She cuts him off. This time, she stares into his eyes as she speaks, letting him see the truth in her words. “You failed, Ari. Someone else got there first. Anthony DiNozzo was declared dead three hours ago.”


	23. Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leon Vance is a cold-eyed man with a crow dæmon that hides both their emotions behind expressionless black eyes. He is not, however, as cold a man as he would like Gibbs to believe.

“I don’t like you, Gibbs,” he tells him from over the desk that until the month before, had been Jenny’s. His crow clicks her beak disapprovingly at Kali. “But you have my full support. I want that bastard six feet under by the end of the week.”

They shake hands, and Gibbs wonders what this new era of director is going to bring.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs walks into the bullpen and Tim tries to click the plasma off before he sees it. He fails. Gibbs glares. Tim swallows and turns it back on.

“Gibbs…” Ziva says quietly, walking up beside him with Abby hovering behind. Abby’s eyes are locked on the screen, her face tortured.

_“Federal Agent murdered. Anthony DiNozzo of NCIS was declared dead early last Tuesday morning following a fatal shooting. It is believed that foreign operatives were involved in his death…”_

The channel flicks as Gibbs mashes the remote, showing them a patchwork montage of news reports.

_“… leaving behind four-year-old Elizabeth…”_

_“It begs the question—if the government can’t keep their own safe, how safe are we? America is a country at war, and our citizens are on the front line…”_

_“Agent DiNozzo’s wife, fellow agent Caitlin Todd, was recognised for bravery in 2005 after her death at the hands of an unnamed sniper…”_

“Is your media always so… inaccurate?” Ziva says, wrinkling her nose. “Tony was never married.”

“Tony wasn’t NCIS when he was shot,” Abby adds, “and Bea is three.”

“Don’t matter,” Gibbs says, flicking the screen off, “they got one thing right.” He turns and a hint of a rare smile plays at the corner of his mouth. “Anthony DiNozzo is dead.”

 

* * *

 

Gibbs tucks his hands in his pocket as he walks nonchalantly up the drive to Ducky’s front door. The man himself is already opening it, smiling warmly, Netta a sedate form by his right leg. The porcupine is wearing a black bowtie, identical to the one around Ducky’s neck. Kali’s ears flick back at the sight, probably imagining having one forced on her.

“Good evening, Jethro,” he says cheerfully. “We were just having ourselves a little memorial. Private party, family only, but of course that always includes you.”

“Memorial, Duck?” Gibbs asks, chasing away a dark hint of disquiet at the term. “For who?”

“For _whom_ ,” Ducky corrects him, winking, and leads the way into his home. “Just fulfilling an old promise made to a friend.” As soon as the door closes behind Gibbs, he can hear giggling echoing from the other room.

He steps into Ducky’s parlour and Fornell smiles at him from his stance by the covered windows, the curtains pulled tightly shut. The other inhabitants of the room look up at him; Mrs. Mallard in her armchair with Bea sitting on her lap, both of their hands wrapped around a fat blue candle; Ziva crouching by their side, holding another, this time lit, candle to theirs; Tim and Abby standing with their arms around each other; Palmer, chewing on the straw to his drink and using the heel of his shoe to scratch at his dæmon’s back; and Tony.

Tony grins shakily up at him from his reclined position across Ducky’s soft couch. “Evening, Boss,” he greets him, his voice still thin from his lingering weakness. “Want a candle?” He holds up his own, tilting it towards the coffee table in the middle of the room, empty except for a sketchbook and a framed photo. Wax drips from the top of the candle, slipping over Tony’s fingers and he winces. Fitz sighs from her spot in front of the fireplace, Ducky’s three corgis sprawled around her, snoring loudly. Pressed against her side, Pelham yawns disinterestedly with Lex a bundle of grey fur under his paws; the older dæmon’s greying muzzle and filmy eyes betraying his age in ways that his sturdy corgi form doesn’t. Mrs. Mallard glances down at her dæmon before turning her attention back to the girl on her lap.

“Careful there, dear,” she says, levelling the candle so Bea doesn’t do the same as her dad. “You’ll mess up your pretty frock with wax.”

“Okay,” Bea says happily. Gibbs swallows back an emotion that leaves a lump in his throat and something warm in his chest, ignoring it. His job isn’t done yet. He’ll get weepy after it is.

Ducky doesn’t have a candle yet. Instead he leans over his mother, taking the candle from Bea with one hand and helping her climb down with the other. “Come on, Elizabeth,” he’s saying, and Gibbs inches closer, curious. Kate’s face comes into view in the photo on the table and his breath catches. “Bring the candle over to your mother’s photo, there’s a girl. We’re all going to talk to her now, okay?”

Bea looks uncertain. “Can she hear me?” she asks, the candle wobbling in her grip.

Ducky looks at Tony. Tony nods. “Of course,” the older man says, wincing as he crouches. “You might not be able to see her, but that doesn’t mean she’s not listening. When we light the candles, we can talk to her, one at a time. Would you like to say anything?”

Bea bites at her lip, her gaze wavering from the table to Tony, and then to Gibbs himself. She smiles at him. “Okay,” she says finally, putting the candle on the table and pushing it closer to the photo, leaving a waxy smear. The light wavers, casting shadows on her hands and a reflection of light from the glass of the frame. “I love you, Mommy. I’ll look after Daddy.” She steps away, eyes drifting around, already losing interest now the candle is out of her hands.

“Love you, Mommy,” Lex adds from the fireplace, yawning widely.

“Hey, Gibbs,” Tony calls. “Give me a hand?” Gibbs takes the candle that Tony offers him, placing it gently on the table next to Bea’s. “Hey, Kate. Sorry about all this. And you owe me money. I told you the next Bond would be Craig.”

“Tony!” Abby scolds as she sets her own candle down. “Hey Kate. Miss you lots. Your kid’s a cutie—I’m pretty sure it’s mostly your fault. She’s way too smart to be pure Tony.”

“Hey!”

Tim next. “Hi, Kate.” His voice is soft. Chitta reaches out a delicate hand to brush the candle as he places it flush with Abby’s black one. “Place is dull without you. There’s no one to keep Tony in line anymore.”

“You know; my daughter is listening. You’re giving her ideas. Daddy doesn’t need to be kept in line, love. Don’t listen to them.”

Ducky next. His words are murmured and only Bea hears them. She laughs, and he smiles as he leads her back to her dad, helping her sit carefully on the edge of the couch with Tony’s arm around her belly.

Ziva declines a candle, looking at Gibbs. Abby does too, holding the guttering taper out to him with a painfully hopeful face.

Gibbs stares at it. What can he say?

_Sorry you died._

_Sorry I lost Tony._

_Sorry I failed your daughter._

_Sorry I failed you._

_I miss you._

Palmer has been and gone while he’s been staring. All eyes are on him now. He takes the candle. Coughs. Puts it down with Bea’s and Tony’s, forming a lopsided triangle.

“Goodbye, Kate,” he says simply.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs vanishes at one point, and Tony finds himself alone again with the ever-so-deadly Mossad operative. “So,” he says with false brevity. “You’re my replacement, huh? Well, I guess you’re hot enough…” She turns that dangerous stare onto him and his mouth instantly dries. She won’t shoot him. He’s pretty sure she won’t shoot him. That would upset Bea, which would upset Gibbs and Ducky and he’s pretty sure not even a crazy woman like Ziva David would willingly incite Ducky’s wrath.

“Not your replacement, Tony,” she says in her odd clipped way of speaking. “I could never replace you in Gibbs’ eyes. I doubt anyone could.”

“Oh.” What else can he say to that?

She blinks slowly, catlike, and he eases down into the couch, head foggy and gut aching. “He missed you very much.” He stays silent. “I understand you are mad at him.” Why is she saying this? “Perhaps… you should rethink your anger. When he knew you were shot he was… inconceivable.”

“Inconsolable.” The word slips out before he can stop himself. “It’s inconsolable, Ziva. And it’s something Gibbs isn’t.”

She smiles. “Maybe not openly,” she says, stubbornly refusing to _stop_. “He asked for help. To find Elizabeth. How often have you known him to do so unless it is of the utmost importance?”

Never.

“Can you get me my pills?” he asks, changing the subject and letting a little bit of the pain he’s fighting filter into his voice. Fitz whines, adding to his ploy, and she nods and vanishes. Leaving him to chew on her words. When it had come down to it, Gibbs had left him and took Bea. He’d kept her safe.

He’d never stopped looking for them.

 

* * *

 

“So what is me being dead going to achieve?” Tony asks as Gibbs helps him dress for bed. His movements are sluggish, dulled by both the painkillers and the leftover pain they’re failing to hold at bay. Gibbs tries not to stare at the three adhesive dressings dotted in a rough line down Tony’s chest and abdomen, each one symbolising a bullet that could have so easily ended his life.

There’s another on Fitz, and that one very nearly did.

“Gonna draw Ari to me,” Gibbs says finally, dragging his gaze up to his face and finding the man looking pensive. “Keep him off your back for one, while you’re healing.” Fitz makes a wry kind of grumbling noise and, when Gibbs turns his head, Kali is standing by her side tentatively sniffing at her fur. The two dæmons are awkward, dancing around each other’s movements, even with the bigger dog laying still on the low bed Ducky had prepared for her.

“Puts you in danger though,” Tony says miserably. “And Bea…”

“Is staying with Abby,” Gibbs says firmly. “Off the record. No one knows where she is but us. He’ll come for me, Tony. Not Bea. She’s safe.”

Tony stares at him. Gibbs braces for the blow.

“Okay,” Tony says finally, easing down onto the pillows and exhaling a slow breath. “Guess I gotta trust you on this one, Boss. Not like I did such a great job on my own…”

Gibbs knows he could walk out right now. Tony is watching him with a hopeful kind of thoughtfulness that he knows will slowly heal the rift between them. The rift that had already been spanned when Tony woke up and found his daughter safe in Gibbs’ arms instead of trapped in a nightmare alone.

But, he also knows that he can do more.

He sits on the bed carefully, laying back next to the man he’d spent a good chunk of the last two years searching for. “You did just fine,” he tells the roof, feeling Tony tense at his words. “She’s alive, Tony. Not only alive, but… okay. She’s not withdrawn. She’s not scared. She’s happy and healthy and that’s all on you. You carried her through hell and she’s completely unscathed.”

He tilts his head and Tony is staring at him oddly. “Most I’ve ever heard you say at once,” he says finally, smirking.

Gibbs reaches across and takes his hand. Neither of them mention it. “Should have said it a long time ago, DiNozzo.”

 

* * *

 

“Who the hell are you?” Fornell has the kind of groggy anger in his voice that means Senior caught him napping. Kali sniggers softly as Gibbs heaves himself off the couch and walks out into the hall in just his boxers and a shirt, glaring at the two men.

“Where the hell is my granddaughter?” Senior snarls, turning on Gibbs with his face twisted with anger and something… unexpected. “Why are you keeping her from me? My lawyer—”

“She’s been detained elsewhere,” Fornell says, folding his arms over his chest and scowling.

“Detained! She’s three! What the fuck detains a three-year-old? Play doh emergency at the office? If you don’t take her to me, I’m calling the cops on the both—”

Gibbs recognises the something. “Okay,” he says, voice ringing odd in his ears. Fornell and Senior continue bickering for a moment, neither hearing him. “Okay!”

Silence. As one, they both stare at him.

“Good!” yells Senior, deflating, as Fornell’s eyebrows furrow together and he murmurs, “Gibbs…”

“Wait here,” Gibbs tells them both. “Making a call first.” Maybe it’s not just him and Tony who need reconciliation.

 

* * *

 

Tony’s stomach is doing gymnastics. If he could walk without assistance, he’d be pacing.

“You’re making my head hurt,” Fitz complains from the floor. “Stop _thinking_.”

“It doesn’t weird you out?” Tony asks her. “First Abby brings Bea around and won’t say why, and now Gibbs is coming over as well and bringing _Dad_ of all people. I mean, why? What could have happened?”

“I don’t know,” she says, lowering her head and putting a wide paw over her nose. Her next words are muffled: “But you’re not going to work it out by laying there chasing your tail.”

So he waits. And he waits. And eventually the front door opens and voices drift in. Gibbs. Fornell.

Dad.

“I don’t know why you’ve dragged me halfway across town when by all rights she should have been brought to me immediately but… _Tony?_ _”_

“Hi, Dad,” Tony says weakly, peering up at his father who looks like he’s… well, seen a ghost. “You did tell him I’m not dead before bringing him here, right?” Tony asks Gibbs, who attempts to look innocent without actually moving his facial muscles from their usual state of ‘at rest’. “Of course you didn’t. Hi, Dad. I’m not actually dead. Hope you didn’t go all out on a headstone…”

Senior’s gone grey. His shrike stares at Fitz, beak gaping.

“Poppy!” shrieks Bea, flying out the double doors leading to the dining room and wrapping her arms around her grandfather’s legs. He crouches, picking her up and pulling her tight to his chest, still staring at Tony. Muffled talking issues from his shirtfront as Bea happily continues rambling about her day despite her current state of being almost smothered.

“You’re alive,” he says finally, his voice _wreaked_. Tony feels a wash of worry suddenly roll over him as Fitz tries to stand, whimpering with concern. “Jesus, Tony, you’re…” And suddenly he’s walking towards him, leaning over him… hugging him?

Tony stares at Gibbs over his dad’s shoulder. Gibbs looks away, reaching down to hold the confused looking Bea’s hand. Tony hugs his dad back, they say nothing, and both try to pretend neither knows the other is crying.

 

* * *

 

Before Gibbs leaves, he helps Tony to bed again. It’s becoming a reoccurring theme. It’s reassuring in a way because, even weak and frail, the warmth of the other man under his arm reminds him that he’s here and he’s alive and, so far as Gibbs understands, he’s not going anywhere. It’s also unsettling: the dressings remind him that there’s no guarantees of anything.

“Gibbs, wait,” Tony says once he’s buttoned his pyjamas over the thick shape of his wounds and settled back into Ducky’s ridiculously comfortable guest bed. The elderly ME has been absolutely fussing over Tony since his arrival here the week before, showing his relief and delight at having him back in the fold by piling as much bedding on him as the frame can reasonably hold. “I mean… Jethro. Wait.” Gibbs freezes. The name sounds weird from Tony’s mouth, stilted and awkward. “I’m sorry I ran.”

Gibbs stares at the door as he replies, heart hammering in his throat. “I’m sorry I let you,” he says finally, his voice a bare whisper in the hush of the room.

“When this is over…” Tony trails off. Gibbs turns. Looks at him. Slowly, so slowly, walks back to the bed and sits down. Tony’s hand creeps over rests gently, hesitantly, on his leg. “Think we can start again? You know… steaks and beer and making boats. You making boats. Me making jokes about you making boats. Just… us. I’ve missed us. So fucking much.”

Gibbs thinks for a long time, probably longer than what the moment warrants, but the last time he rushed something, he lost his family for two years. “No,” he says finally, and Tony visibly wilts, his face falling into a mask of forced indifference. Gibbs catches his hand before it can slip away, gripping it tightly. “No starting again, Tony. What we are, you and me, we never stopped.”

When he leans down and brushes his lips against the other man’s forehead, it feels like coming home. When Tony tilts his head back and catches his mouth with his own, it makes home a certainty. 


	24. Zenith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s a cautious kind of touching. There are parts of Tony that are wounded, and they’re not all covered by sterile dressings. There’s a skittishness to his eyes that speaks of the years he’s spent running, and a tentativeness to his hands that speaks to the concept of loneliness. Gibbs can’t breathe for knowing that pain, that loneliness, because he’d lived through it too, but he’s not arrogant enough to assume that his was anywhere near the same.

He had Tim and Abby and Ducky and even Ziva. Tony had a daughter who was completely reliant on him, and no one else in the world.

It’s not sex. They’ve learnt their lesson about forcing that. It’s reconnection.

It’s Tony shifting as much under Gibbs’ deft hands as his body will let him, while those hands trace the newly formed lines of his body that’s turned thin where it was one muscled, scarred where it was once smooth. It’s Gibbs tasting the words unsaid in the corner of Tony’s mouth as Tony tries to tell him everything he can’t say using the harsh rasp of his breathing. It’s slowing and just laying together, arms tangled around each other, listening to a summer storm rolling in against the window and the decelerating rate of each other’s hearts.

Gibbs curls against the other man’s side, seeing the flicker of light from the moon outside the rain-splattered window catch in his eyes. Tony’s gaze slips, shutters, his eyes closing as exhaustion battles his desire to stay in this moment.

Stupid. They’ll have many more.

Gibbs is sure of it.

“Go to sleep,” he says, brushing his lips against the stubble on Tony’s jaw, tracing the outline of his mouth with his own. “I’ll be back in the morning.”

“Stay,” Tony says, voice slurring slightly as the painkillers drag him back into himself, turning his head and examining Gibbs plaintively. “Don’t go.”

“I’ll be back,” Gibbs promises. “Can’t all laze about, DiNozzo.”

Tony nods. Lets his eyes close. Snaps them back open again and catches Gibbs’ wrist as the man prepares to climb out of the bed and reach for his shoes. “I…” he stammers, and trails off. Gibbs reclaims his wrist, scooping up his shoes with his other hand as he stands.

“I know,” he says, smiling and feeling that smile sink into his mouth and his eyes and bring his heart to a swift thrum. “I love you too.”

As he closes the door behind him, thunder rolls, and Fitz sighs happily.

 

* * *

 

Gibbs is there and then he isn’t, in this floating twilight that’s become his world until they start to wean him off what Abby calls, ‘the good stuff.’ He blinks awake as the windows rattle. It’s been hours, or possibly just minutes, since the space next to him was vacated. He runs his palm over the sheets, slowly, feeling the soft cotton catching on the pads of his rough fingers.

Still warm. Minutes then. He lets himself doze, trying not to dwell on the _rightness_ of this moment until

snapping awake and

Fitz is up, wide-eyed, fur bristling, bringing them both sharp-pain as she staggers, knocking her shoulder against the wall and yelping.

“Damnit, Fleabag,” he yelps, rolling towards her and feeling his gut _scream_ in dismay at the sudden movement. “Fitz! Stop!”

Fitz looks at him in the dark and then it’s not dark anymore as the room lights up in a flash of lightning.

He can see the whites of her eyes against her tawny mask.

He can feel her fear.

“Something is wrong,” she whines, and he feels it too.

 

* * *

 

The rain is warm enough to feel pleasant on his face as he slips out the front door without alerting Tobias to his presence. The last thing he needs right now is _that_ conversation. He’s going to have to face it anyway, tomorrow, when the men watching his house report to their boss that he didn’t get home until the ass-end of the morning. Rain splashes in puddles on Ducky’s gravel drive, spraying his ankles with chilled splatters of grit. He looks around, at the black gleam of moonlight on the wet grass and the sharp acrid scent of lightning in his nose.

Shannon used to love the rain.

Kali shakes, shedding water from her fur in a torrent as he unlocks the car, his key slipping on the wet surface. She’s drenched, her fur clinging to her sides and making her look somehow diminished, a shapeless canine form with wide bat ears the only thing still resembling her usual self. He holds back a sharp laugh as she jumps in the car and grumbles, leaving muddy pawprints across the driver’s seat and centre console. It’s the kind of night for laughing. Tony and Bea are home, Ari’s end is certain, and the rain is cleansing everything they’ve suffered from their lives.

He should have remembered his thoughts of the previous day. The job’s not done till it’s done right. He slips into the car and Kali turns her head to say something cutting, when her eyes widen. Her nose twitches. She spins and snarls. Gibbs turns his head; the raindrops on his face are replaced by a hot, burning pain and the sound of hissing.

 

* * *

 

Fitz slips out the bedroom door into the passage and Tony staggers after. There’s rain and the chill of the cooling night and then there’s a shuddering _boom_ that sets all of Ducky’s shelves of knick-knacks and ornaments rattling. Tony grabs the doorframe and Fitz drops like she’s been shot, both turning to face the direction of the explosion. Feet rushing. Tony hears Ziva shout something, Ducky calling out. They’re moving towards the smoke, the fire, Ducky’s backyard.

Fitz turns and lopes painfully towards the front.

“Fitz,” he calls, and she whines. “The hell are you doing?”

“Gibbs,” she says stubbornly, and keeps going.

He follows.

 

* * *

 

He flings himself sideways out of the door, his only thought to get this the hell off his face before it does permanent damage, fighting the clawing _terror_ that assails him. _Not my eyes, not my eyes,_ his mind is screaming, trying to cripple his reactions with fear, but that doesn’t stop his sight from tearing, blurring, replaced with fracturing starbursts of light and a swelling, burning agony that rips the air from his lungs. He hits the gravel on his side, rolls onto his ass and tilts his head back, eyes open, seeing nothing but black and light, letting the rain clear the venom from his face and eyes, cupping a hand over his mouth to stop any from dripping down. There’s a boom and the world shudders under him. The inky black of the sky vanishes for a moment, replaced with white, and he looks around wildly, lost.

“Leroy!” cries Kali, and then _shrieks_ , a fox shriek. It’s the scream of a fighting dog fox, and he can hear the sound of gravel being kicked up by lashing paws, the click of her teeth. The rain has slowed. He reaches for his hip, his gun, and a weight (a heel, he recognises the feel of a boot) slams down on his fingers, kicking it away from him.

“Hello, Agent Gibbs,” Ari says. Gibbs blinks, wanting to close his eyes to focus on pinpointing that sound, but he’s scared to let the venom sink in. _Not my eyes._

“Ari,” he snarls, and Kali yelps, once, twice, falls. There’s a spreading heat from two points of his body that isn’t his pain. His side. His throat.

“Elapid venom can kill a healthy adult in as little as forty-five minutes,” Ari croons, and he’s crouching, his voice close. The heat pools. Gibbs feels his breath catch, quicken, rasp. Kali makes an inaudible noise. “I should imagine that a fox will succumb far quicker.”

 

* * *

 

“What are you doing? Tony!” Ziva grabs him, and he has to cling to the handle of Ducky’s front door to stop from overbalancing. “Someone just set off a small charge in Ducky’s garden shed. You cannot go outside.” All Tony knows of this woman is that she rocked up after Kate’s death and Gibbs sided with her over him. He doesn’t look at her. He doesn’t trust her.

Although… that’s not entirely true. He knows she’s part of Gibbs’ team now. Has been for years. He knows she cares.

“I have a feeling,” he says slowly, his gut churning with more than just pain. “Fitz… Fitz has a feeling. Gibbs just left. He’s probably still out there. I won’t be alone.” The dæmon in question is currently digging with her front paws at the base of the front door, royally pissed that no one has let her out yet.

Ziva looks from him to his dæmon and her mouth thins. Someone cries out from the back. She crouches, fiddling with her pant leg, and when she stands she’s holding a handgun. “Gibbs says always trust your dæmon,” she says quietly, and hands him the gun. “I have to help Ducky. Do _not_ leave the perimeter.”

“How many of these do you have?” he asks, taking the gun from her and squinting at her pants. “And… where?”

She snorts. “Pig.” Then she’s gone and he slips out the door to stem the echo of Kate’s voice saying the exact same thing. Same tone of voice as well.

 

* * *

 

“Did you _really_ think that I am that _stupid_ , Gibbs? Did you think I would not see through your clever little _ruse?_ ” Gibbs reaches for Kali. His fingers fall short, trailing across the wet gravel. Ari’s voice wavers as he paces, moving. Pain. “After all this time—after all this _time_ —you still underestimate me! And now, _Leroy_ , I am going to leave you there while I go inside and take from you the very last thing you have left of Anthony DiNozzo.”

_What?_

_Kali._

“Bea,” he says, slurring, his voice isn’t working, his eyes aren’t working, his mind isn’t. Kali makes a gurgling kind of rattle and he rolls towards that noise, feeling his throat working around an imagined injury, his body struggling to understand how it’s hurt and where. His fingers brush sodden fur that’s limp and cold and still. She twitches very slightly and he feels the curves of her chest under his palm.

“Correct.” Ari is looming close again. “Lovely little Elizabeth. Do not worry—to her I shall be kinder than to you. A bullet is far quicker a way for her to be reunited with her dear parents. Perhaps I shall pay a visit to the good doctor as well, loath as I am to deprive the world of such a wit as his.”

Kali growls, the sound shuddering like a faulty motor, and Ari makes a disgusted noise over the sound of the rain beginning again. Gibbs blinks and the ground swims into view, then Kali, two Kalis, flat on the gravel with her muzzle pulled back in a rictus of pain and anger. A shapeless shadow moves past them, lashes out. Gibbs and Kali both cry out as the boot strikes her ribs before walking away, towards the house.

_Tony._

 

* * *

 

There’s a figure pacing. There’s a figure on the ground. Tony doesn’t need to be a genius to know which is his target. He sights and brushes his finger against the trigger.

_This is for Kate, you bastard._

 

* * *

 

Gibbs throws off the pain, the creeping tightness in his chest, the blindness that threatens at the edges of his vision. He stands. The world tries to throw him down again. He ignores it. Gibbs doesn’t take orders well, not even from gravity.

“Haswari!” he shouts, stepping forward and feeling his leg shake, crumple, knowing he looks weak and old and helpless right now. The burning on his face has receded with the rain, but his throat is a liquid heat that he can feel closing, swelling, even though his own airways are fine. He doesn’t look at Kali because he knows that will bring him down.

The shape of Ari stops. Gibbs can’t tell if it’s turned or not. Lightning again, a rumble of thunder, and in that split-second Gibbs can smell smoke. He steps forward once. Once again. Ari tips into view, the rough suggestion of his face. Gibbs memorizes it. If he’s to die here, he’s dragging Ari to hell with him.

“You’re unarmed, old man,” Ari says, and Gibbs doesn’t need his sight to hear the mockery in his face. “What are you going to do? Even your soul is faltering.”

He bunches his fist, feeling his muscles refuse to answer his call, weakening. He can’t tighten it. He hits on the gravel on his knees. He can’t fucking breathe. He looks at Kali; she’s not moving. A hand touches his cheek, his jaw, and he jerks back with a hiss, refusing to kneel in front of this bastard, instead letting himself fall heavily onto his side. Just as weak, but not subservient. His vision wavers and focuses, and he looks into Ari’s cold eyes. He’s still looking as the man speaks.

“I think I shall bring her to you,” he’s saying. “So you can know she is dead as you die, and that it is entirely _your fault._ ” He laughs again and Gibbs wonders how long he’s been mad.

He’s still looking when there’s a crack and the laugh stops. The eyes blink and widen and then become empty. Where his forehead was there’s nothing now.

He hits the gravel in a burst of gold that blinds Gibbs as it spirals around them. Red and gold again. Howling. Gibbs can hear howling.

Hands on him. Ari again? No, Ari is dead. Gibbs is pretty sure he’s dead too.

“Dying,” he rasps, and lets himself fall limp. “Kali.”

“Like fuck you are,” Tony says angrily, and lets him fall. He leaves. He leaves Gibbs.

He’s alone.

 

* * *

 

Tony runs. It feels like he’s tearing himself apart with every heavy footfall, but he ignores that. There’ll be time to whinge about it later. Gibbs. Gibbs on the ground. Gibbs splattered with gold and red, his face a mess of blood and red-raw skin that’s swelling even as he looks at it.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

He hates _snakes_.

“Where are you bitten?” he asks frantically, tugging at clothes, at belts, at shoes. Gibbs gasps, a soggy kind of wheeze that bodes really fucking badly for his respiratory system. Tony knows. He knows that sound. He’s lived that sound. “Gibbs, _Gibbs_. Where the fuck did she bite you?”

How venomous are spitting cobras? He can’t remember.

“Tony!” Fitz grabs his sleeve, pulling him. “It’s Kali. She got Kali!”

Fuck.

Tony lets Gibbs’ shirt slip from his fingers and scrambles on his knees over to the limp fox. There’s gold in her dark fur as well, and it sticks wetly to his fingers when he drags his hand across her fur searching for the tell-tale puncture wounds.

“Dying,” Gibbs chokes out behind him, right as Tony’s fingers skip over a hard lump on the fox’s slim side. One. “Kali.”

“Like fuck you are,” Tony snaps, tipping the fox over and finding a sluggish trickle of blood from a matching wound on her throat. _Bastard._ Her tongue lolls from her mouth and when he pulls her jaws open, he can see her throat swelling, closing, her eyes sightless. “Sorry, Boss. This is gonna pull a little.” Her paws kick feebly at the air as he picks her up and holds her close to her chest.

He runs.

 

* * *

 

It’s hard to cling to anything when there’s nothing to cling to but the smell of grass and smoke and the memory of what it feels like to burn. He’s mostly numb now and that’s a relief. He tries to look to Kali and where she was on the drive, there’s nothing but gold. Gold and then a hulking shape as something shambles into view, looming over him, pressing down against him.

“Fitzperte,” he says, because he’d know her even blind. She curls against him, her muzzle on his heart, and he twines his fingers through her fur and hangs on grimly.

 

* * *

 

“Ducky!”

The ME turns to stare at him, the flickering flames from the shed reflected in his eyes. “Anthony! Good god, you’re soaked through! What… what are you...?”

“Ari,” Tony gasps, holding the fox out. She lolls in his hands, stupidly light. “His snake.”

“Gibbs?” Ziva asks, and Tony thinks he answers, he guesses he must have, because she vanishes moments later. Ducky takes Kali with hands that don’t shake even slightly.

“Come on then, Kali. Let’s get you fixed up then, Atta ‘girl. Netta, get me my bag. Tobias, I’m going to need help once you’ve called for the medics. Anthony, _don’t move._ ”

He sinks to the ground, his head swimming and chest burning, and watches as Ducky works to keep Gibbs’ soul alive, Fornell at his side.

 

* * *

 

A hand brushes his face. He opens his eyes and Ziva is peering down at him. “Ambulance is coming,” she says with a calm he actually believes she feels. “Ducky has Kali. She is okay, Gibbs. She will be fine. You will both be fine.” Icy water trickles over his face as she tips it around his eyes, but they’re already clear. The cold is welcome though.

“Ari is dead,” he rasps, because that fact is huge and inescapable. It’s over. It’s fucking over. The cost was too high. _Kate. Tony. Bea. He took too much from us._ “Tony killed him.”

She nods and settles onto her heels, squatting by his side. Farif paces, leaning down to sniff delicately at Fitz’s chest, his whiskers making her nose twitch. “I know.”

“You should go to him. Go to your family.” The words cost him everything. He doesn’t want to think of Ari as human, as _loved_.

Farif huffs, and looks at Gibbs. Actually _looks_ at him, not around him or through him. His voice is lyrical and smooth. “We _are_ with our family,” he says, and Ziva startles, staring at him like she doesn’t recognise him. “Now stop moving. Kali does not need the strain.”

Ziva catches his eye and nods, mouth expressionless. She waits by his side with her back to Ari’s body, and neither of them mention it again.

 

* * *

 

It’s not fair. Tony spent a month in the hospital in a damn coma, and none of his nurses were anywhere _near_ as hot as Gibbs’ are.

“Close your mouth, DiNozzo,” Gibbs snaps, face set in a permanent expression of ‘furious’ at their refusal to let him go home yet. “Flies will get in.”

“Why do you get all the hot ones?” he complains, turning in his seat to look plaintively up at his boss. “It’s not fair.”

“Not fair,” Bea parrots obediently, sitting on Gibbs blanket-covered lap and trying to feed herself jello with a plastic fork. As Tony watches, a glob of blue falls from the fork and lands on the white blanket. “Oopsie.”

“You’re an oopsie,” Tony retorts. Lex licks the jello up happily, plumy tail wagging wildly and almost sending the plastic fork flying. “Good god, girl. Use the spoon. The spoon! I’ve raised an animal!”

Bea puts the fork down. “Spoon?” she says thoughtfully, and picks the fork back up.

Gibbs’ mouth twitches. That’s practically a laugh. Tony chooses to take it as a laugh.

“Hey Bea,” he says innocently. “Are you going to tell Gibbs what we did?”

Bea blinks and shoves the, empty, fork in her mouth. “No,” she mumbles around a mouthful of plastic. Gibbs takes the fork, putting it of reach and handing her the spoon instead. There’s cream thickly slathered around his eyes, the skin underneath a deep painful looking red, but Bea doesn’t seem to mind how odd it makes him look. “Oooh, yes. We made a boat.”

Gibbs’ eyebrows shoot up. “You… made a boat?” he asks, turning and scowling at Tony. “With… my tools?”

“No, silly. With Daddy’s.” Bea looks expectantly at Tony and he laughs, pulling the folded picture out of his pocket. “See.” It doesn’t look much like a boat. Tony’s pretty sure he can see a lion in the lines and swirls, if he squints, but certainly not a boat.

Gibbs takes the picture and studies it. “Ahh yes,” he says seriously, nodding. Kali peers over from her spot on her own bed, shoved close to his head, blinking at it. “I can see the boat, right here. And you’ve put Kali on there too.”

Bea smiles. “Yes! And Per… Fitz.”

“Yep. I see her too, over here, by the rudder.”

“What’s a rudder?”

“You’re a rudder,” Tony answers automatically, earning himself a glare from the both of them.

“Can I hang it?” Bea asks, pointing to the picture. “My boat?”

“Not on these walls, love,” Gibbs answer, and Tony freezes. _Love_. “When we get home, you can put it up on your bedroom wall, okay?”

_Your bedroom._

_Home._

“Tony’s panicking,” Fitz announces cheerfully, opening her mouth so Bea can drop a glob of jelly in there.

“No I’m not,” he tries to say, but what comes out is more like, “Nymaaot.”

Gibbs turns that blue-eyed glare onto him and Tony feels like a bug about to be pinned to a board. He grins weakly, but it doesn’t work to forestall the coming question. “If you want to stay, that is,” Gibbs ends up saying, softly.

Bea scrunches her face up. A warning bell dings. Tantrum face. She doesn’t though. The face vanishes, just leaving… sad. “Don’t wanna go,” she says, looking down. “Not finished my jelly.”

Kali coughs. “Always a place for you, Tony,” she says thickly, her voice still choked by the slowly healing wound in her neck. Tony doesn’t look at it too closely. It’s not pretty. “For as long as you need. That’s never changed.”

Tony looks at Gibbs who looks away like he’s worried he’ll influence his answer. “Well, Bea,” Tony begins, slowly. “Do you want to stay with Jethro?”

Her eyes widen and she looks, for a moment, absolutely terrified. “Don’t go,” she whines instantly, wriggling and almost slipping off the bed. Gibbs catches her quickly, pulling her back. “Don’t go again.”

“He’s not going anywhere,” he soothes, rubbing her back as she hiccups nervously, nose running. “He’s staying with you, no matter what. I promise.” Tony tosses him the tissue box. They’ve reached a painfully domestic stage. Hell, moving in isn’t really going to make much of a difference now. They’re practically married as is.

“Alright,” he says, and Gibbs pauses with the tissue inches from Bea’s nose. “Okay. We’ll stay. But I’m not sleeping in the guest bedroom. Or on the couch. There’s room for both of us in the bed.”

It’s assuming a lot. It’s almost arrogant.

Gibbs smiles.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way, DiNozzo.”


	25. Afterwards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s a long stretch of time when Gibbs does a double take every time he walks into his kitchen in the morning. There’s a long time when, for a split second every morning, he hears a child laughing and has to remind himself what year it is. There’s a long stretch of time when things aren’t perfect, not by a long shot, but they’re pretty damn good.

Gibbs treasures every damn minute of it.

 

* * *

 

They dance around each other for a while. It’s strange. Going from living on his own, to basically living with Kate, to being back on his own but with a kid in tow, all in the space of three years… it didn’t really prepare him for living in a home. An actual home.

Not an apartment he keeps carefully impersonal to remind himself that everything is temporary.

Not a couch in Kate’s living room to remind himself that he’s extraneous.

Not a run-down, derelict apartment in the shadiest corners of random cities to hunker down in and flinch at every noise. There’s no reminder of being hunted here.

An honest to god home with Bea in her own room that Gibbs helps her paint and a bookcase with actual books tucked alongside Tony’s slowly regrowing DVD collection. Fitz has a place in front of the fire, with Kali by her side. Bea goes to playgroup. Goes to kindy. She’ll be in school eventually, not long now. A home with Gibbs who doesn’t push him. They sleep in the same bed but if they touch in the night, it’s fleeting. They share breakfast together but when Gibbs kisses him, it’s shy and over far too soon.

There’s a photo of Kate on the mantel, right next to Shannon and Kelly.

And, one day, Tony wants to be pushed.

“It’s been three months,” he says, closing the bedroom door beside him and stripping his shirt off. He sees Gibbs twitch when he throws it over the nearby chair. Gibbs is a folder, not a thrower. Yeah, it’s a home with fights too, and they’re nowhere near as satisfying as the ones with Kate since Gibbs doesn’t bite back and there’s no angry sex after.

“Yeah it has,” Gibbs says, flicking the page of his book and peering at him over the top of his glasses. “Good to see Bea’s been teaching you how to tell time.”

“It’s been three months since I moved in. Since we moved in.” Tony slides onto the bed. There’s a _thunk_ at the door as Fitz walks into it, not expecting it to be shut. He hears her muttering angrily, Kali’s soft laugh, them padding away. “You know…” He brings his mouth flush with Gibbs’, closing his eyes and just hovering there. “You don’t have to tiptoe around me.”

Gibbs breaks the moment, tilting his head back and claiming Tony in a kiss that’s just as hungry as Tony expected. His glasses bump Tony’s nose, earning a huff of irritation from the other man as he pulls them off and tosses them onto the bedside table.

“Not tiptoeing, DiNozzo,” he says as Tony slides into the bed next to him and continues exploring with his mouth, nipping at his jaw, his throat, his shoulder. “All you had to do was ask.”

“Okay,” Tony says, voice muffled by the warm skin he’s pressed against. “I’m asking.”

“It’s about damn time.”

 

* * *

 

Tim McGee has spent his life being underestimated. People assume things about him. They see his hobbies and they assume he’s nothing more than a geek. They see his smile and his reservedness and they underestimate his ability to do his job. They see his dæmon and they assume so much more.

Chameleons. Shy. Harmless. Easily hidden. _Oh, your dæmon is male? Gay. Faggot. Freak._

They rarely think ‘adaptable.’ They’d be right if they did.

He’s under his desk, arguing with Chitta in a low voice over which of the connections of his desktop is fried, when a shadow falls over his legs.

“Very Special Agent Timothy McGawky,” says the last voice Tim had expected to hear in the NCIS bullpen again. “Look at you, all dusty. Good to know things never change.”

Tim sticks his head out from under the desk, Chitta on his shoulder, and his dæmon promptly cops a long, wet tongue to the side of his head.

“Hi, Chitterino,” Fitz says, wagging her tail madly. “Did you miss us?”

“Are you back?” Tim asks, stupidly perhaps, but Tony’s wearing jeans and a polo and a grin that Tim is only just starting to realize he’s missed. The endless rotation of replacements after Langer finally walked out was starting to grate on them all. “Like, back back? For good back?”

Tony shrugs. “Maybe. You’ll be the probie again.” He winks.

Tim stands up and he can feel the grin trying to break through. He doesn’t give in though. “We’d be glad to have you, Tony,” he says, honestly, “but I’m not a probie anymore.”

Tony examines him.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “You’re not, are you?”

Gibbs lets the back of his hand swipe across the back of Tony’s head as he strides past. Tony doesn’t even flinch. “Hasn’t been for a long time,” he says without expression in his voice. “Director wants you, DiNozzo. Move your ass. You’re on my clock now.”

 

* * *

 

Abby opens her door to find Tony pouting. It’s always a gift to find Tony pouting, he manages to pull the look off so well. Gibbs is a damn lucky man, damn lucky. Then again, Tony is too… she’s not averse to a bit of silver fox herself.

Anyway.

“She said that?” Abby asks Tony, not because she didn’t hear him, but because this is the most ego-fulfilling thing she’s heard all week. And with Timmy around, she hears a lot of ego-fulfilling things. It’s really not hard to make that particular compliment canary sing. “Say again what she said.”

Tony scowls, and Fitz picks up on the pouting. Abby fights the urge to _dawww_ at the sad looking doggie. “She said,” he mutters, “that career day is for ‘interesting’ jobs.”

Abby squeaks: “And?”

“And… since I’m not ‘interesting’, she would like someone slightly more…”

“Clever? Talented? Science-y? Goth?”

“… Yes.”

This is the best thing _ever_. Wait. “What about Gibbs?” Surely Bea couldn’t call _Gibbs_ uninteresting.

Tony smirks. “Tarred with the same brush. Regulated to the ‘boring’ box along with me and Tim _and_ Ziva.”

Abby pats him on the shoulder, consolingly. “It’s okay, Tony. I bet Gibbs handled it a lot better than you did as well.”

“I’m not boring,” Tony mumbles, almost inaudible.

Still. Gibbs or not Gibbs, this _is_ wonderful. Abby has always loved school.

 

* * *

 

Ziva David doesn’t have a whole lot of experience with ‘family’.

But she is learning.

“Pot… luck,” she says slowly, eyes scanning the bat-afflicted invitation the excitable Abby has just thrust at her over her desk. “You would like me to bring a pot?”

“No, Ziva, gosh. Don’t you people have dinner parties in Israel?” Abby beams, helping Mort climb onto her shoulder without slipping off the slick surface of the leather jacket she is wearing.

“Not with pots. Not generally.”

It takes Abby an hour to get to the end of her explanation of what turns out to be a very simple concept, but the end result is Ziva stepping into Gibbs’ home with a covered plate of falafel and Farif strolling uneasily by her side. His uneasiness is understandable. Last time she’d come to one of Abby’s ‘dinners’, somebody had attempted to Velcro an amusing hat to his head. Ziva is pretty sure it was Mort. She would not admit it, but she was almost disappointed that they failed.

There is a moment, even after all these years, when she stands on the sidelines looking in at the happy crowd of her workmates, and she is not entirely sure of how to become a part of that crowd.

“Auntie Ziva!” A small hand grabs hers, no hesitation in the bright smile that beams up at her. “I have to read a book at school, and it has Farif in it!”

“Does it?” Ziva asks, allowing herself to be tugged across the room. Lex bounds over, ducking through Farif’s legs as a hare before shifting and settling as a fluffy-coated cheetah cub, purring loudly. “Sounds like a wonderful book.”

“Oh it is!” Lex declares. “I’m going to be a cheetah when I settle, for sure.”

“Last week you were going to be a fox,” Bea says, looking down at him.

“Was not. I was always going to be a cheetah!”

“Was too!”

“Okay, let’s not drag ‘Auntie’ Ziva into another one of your endless arguments,” Tony says, appearing at her side and rescuing her arm from Bea’s sticky grip. “Go find the book and bring it here. Lex, don’t sass her. Bea, don’t… just don’t. Whatever it is you’re thinking of doing.”

“It is okay, Tony,” Ziva says, smiling. “I do not mind.”

She doubts she ever will.

 

* * *

 

The week before Bea’s sixth birthday, Gibbs comes home and Senior is standing on his porch.

“They’re not home for another hour,” he says in lieu of greeting, his discomfort with the man still high. “Some show Tony wanted to see.” Kali sniffs and ignores them both, turning her head away.

“I know,” Senior says quietly, holding up a small wrapped present. “Brought something for you to give her from me.”

Gibbs pauses. He doesn’t take the box, not right away. “Could wait and give it to her yourself.”

Senior shakes his head slowly, and Gibbs knows what this is. He takes the box.

“Tony’s never going to forgive you for this,” he warns the older man. “You know him. He doesn’t take well to being walked away from.”

“No, you’re right,” Senior replies. His bird dæmon shrinks into his collar, beak downturned. “He prefers to be the one walking away. Which he should have, years ago. I’m not good for them.”

Gibbs watches him leave, shoulders stubbornly upright. “Whatever mess you’re in, Mr. DiNozzo,” he calls after him. “We’ll help you.”

The man pauses with his hand on his car door handle. “Why? You don’t like me. I would have taken Elizabeth from you in a heartbeat and never given you another thought. And if you think I’m at all happy with this… _thing_ … you have going with my son...”

“This thing?” Gibbs says, his voice ice, and Senior’s mouth twitches unhappily, “is our family. Of which you’re… unhappily… a part of. And we will help you. You thought you’d lost him once. Have you forgotten that fear?”

There’s a moment when maybe he might have taken the offer. Unlike his son, the father never learnt that it’s okay to lean on others.

“No,” Senior says, and gets in the car.

He doesn’t say goodbye, and when Gibbs gives the box to Tony, his face says everything.

 

* * *

 

Ducky steps out of the car and the wind buffets him. He can see three familiar figures standing in the distance, at unfamiliar graves.

“Come along, Netta,” he chides his dæmon, as she expresses her displeasure at the cold air. “Jethro didn’t ask us along to be polite. He wants us here.” The walk is short but still leaves them both panting, the rise of the hill sharp enough to really get the muscles working. Ah well. Good for the heart, good for the soul, that’s what he always says.

He’s pretty sure Netta would disagree.

Anthony is hanging back, of course. He watches the two by the graves, his face solemn, but he’s not yet firm enough in his surety of Jethro’s heart to step forward and join them. He always could be silly.

“Anthony,” Ducky greets him. Fitzperte waves her tail in a similar fashion to Anthony’s half-hand-wave, beaming at seeing the porcupine ambling up the hill towards them. “We’re not too late, are we?”

“No,” Anthony says quietly. “Just in time. Bea wanted you to come. She said it was your idea in the first place.”

“Well, actually, using candles for mourning was far before my time,” Ducky begins, but Netta clears her throat. He trails off, smiling. “A story for another time, perhaps. For now, the purpose we’re here for…”

He walks forward, Anthony trailing behind. Jethro is crouched, his fingers pressed against the thick lawn covering the smaller of the graves. Elizabeth stands by his side, her face serious with the weight of the moment. Ahlexis is similarly sombre; a rangy hound today that sits neatly beside her with his muzzle turned against the wind. Ducky wonders how long it has been since Jethro has been here. He wonders if he would have come at all if Elizabeth hadn’t asked him to.

They light the candles in glasses to shelter them from the wind, passing them between them. Elizabeth holds Anthony’s hand. She smiles at Jethro.

“You should go first,” she says, nudging him gently, and Ducky notes suddenly that at some point the girl has gotten rather tall. As is the way with children, he supposes. They do have a tendency to grow. He does almost wish she’d stop though. It’s odd to see her at Jethro’s elbow in height, and odder still to think she’ll be taller yet until she’s done.

There’s an odd habit of people to ascribe to children the qualities of their parents, as though they are incapable of forming no virtues of their own without parental influence. Ducky tries to avoid this. It is hard, however, when he can see Anthony’s influence in her smile, and Caitlin in the spark of stubbornness in her eyes. It’s even harder when she stands like Jethro, straight-backed and certain.

Jethro takes a deep breath. Ducky holds his own and waits.

He’s not unaware of the step they’re taking here. This is a man drowning in his past finally allowing himself to climb free of the waves.

“Shannon,” Jethro says finally, placing the candle on the grave. “It’s been a while…”

He’s not much of a talker, their Jethro, but when the time is right, he almost always knows what to say.

 

* * *

 

As they walk from the graveyard, Bea is thoughtful. She lets Daddy walk ahead with Ducky, and falls back by Leroy’s side. He slows his pace to match hers, his expression impossible to understand. One day she’ll get better at reading his facial expressions. Daddy is pretty good at it. She assumes it comes with practice. Probably more practice than she’s had time for yet. Maybe when she’s eleven, it will be easier.

“You must miss her,” she says, quietly because this kinda hurts, a little. The thought of him losing his Kelly. It’s hard to properly imagine, until she thinks of Daddy losing her, and that hurts way too much. “Kelly, I mean. Did coming here… did it help?”

Leroy doesn’t answer. Sometimes he doesn’t. She does what Daddy does, and just lets it go. He’ll answer her when he’s good and ready, and not before.

“I’m sorry you lost your daughter,” she says finally, awkwardly, because that’s what people say when someone dies, and she is sorry. “And Shannon as well.” That one is harder to be sorry for because one part of her wishes Shannon was here so Leroy can’t be sad about it anymore, and the other part points out that if she _was_ here, than maybe her and Daddy wouldn’t be. At least, not with Leroy anyway.

“Didn’t lose my daughter,” Leroy says eventually, and he stops and looks at her with that really sharp kinda looking, like Kali when she’s hunting mice, or Fitz when she wants a biscuit. “I’m still her dad, no matter what.” His mouth twitches and it’s practically a shout of joy. “Only difference is now I got two daughters, instead of one. And I’m glad of it.”

Oh.

_Oh._

She smiles and takes his hand.

They walk the last stretch to the car together.

 

* * *

 

It was almost like the end of a long story. In the years to come, Leroy Gibbs would become very familiar with stories.

An ex-marine walks into a house that hasn’t been a home for a long time, and finds it not empty. There’s a cop from Baltimore, the treasured memories of those passed, and a child with arms held out to him. Gibbs isn’t lonely.

What happens next is the after.

What happens next is the rest of their lives.

**Author's Note:**

> **Edited November, 2017.**


End file.
